Sonata
by Claire East
Summary: Lord Voldemort had a secret. When he returned to power he sought out that secret and convinced her to return with him to take her place at his side in his quest to kill Harry Potter and to achieve immortality. She will help him achieve one of these goals.
1. Chapter 1: Elizabeth

SONATA

Part One

Such sweet sound, such dark and tantalizing melodies. They were as dark as the corridor that he followed and as beautifully bitter as his longing to have heard them again with his own ears.

How had missed them. How he had missed she that played them.

The door that hid both the player and the piano on which she played was near the end of the unlit corridor. The soft light of candles bled out from under the door over the floor and he stepped into that stain of light curling his toes against the carpet and the warmth within it.

He opened the door carefully and stepped inside quietly, shutting the door behind himself. There she was across the room seated at her black instrument, her delicate fingers caressing and pressing its teeth to make such beautiful music.

He placed his wand atop the bookshelf nearest the door; a custom she had insisted of him since their time together had begun long before his exile, long before his demise. He had not relinquished his wand for any other, but it was part of her terms...terms he had abided by and would now if he wished her to receive him as he desired her to.

Her back was to him and she had not heard him enter. The bedroom had not changed from when he had last seen it. The fire still crackled warmly in the behind the hearth stone and the many candles fitted to ornamental wall fixtures were lit and sputtering wax. Their wicks were always too long, he had told her that before, and yet she always insists they were fine.

As he crossed the hardwood floor he cantered towards her as delicately as he could, his ears fixated on the cadence of the tune. If she faltered it was a sign she had heard him...and while he wanted to surprise her he did not want to scare her, she would be scared enough when she laid eyes upon him.

He was close enough that he could smell her, reach out and touch her if he liked when he carefully sunk to his knees and approached her from behind. He held his breath when he found himself only inches from her and hesitated when he reached out and gently tangled the fingers of one hand in the ends of her long dark hair. It was longer now by as much as several inches since he'd last seen her.

He stood on his knees and let the arms of his robes fall down to his elbows as he gently laid his hands on her upper arms and spoke gently to her, whispering as kindly as he could into her ear. "Elizabeth..."

She did not stop playing and for this he was grateful. Though he wondered if she wanted to see him, if her stony indifference to his touch was her way of telling him to leave.

He whispered into her name a little more loudly into her other ear before kissing her delicately on the neck.

Her hands fells from the piano's keys and landed at her sides. She still held her arms and remained close to her, but she was still as a statue, peering not at her music notes, but through them...that much of her face he could see.

"I know it's you." She started. He opened his mouth to speak but shut it when she continued. "I never doubted any of those tales the Potter boy told...about you, about your return...about your inhuman way of persisting through life after what should have been your death."

He waited, unable to decipher the tone of her reception of him by the inflections in her voice or the stillness of her form. "I wondered when- and if I'd see you again." She added.

"Of course...of course you would see me again." He said softly.

She turned on her seat to face him, her hair flying and her face set as if to fight. But when her dark eyes fell on him – on his new self – the intention in her face faltered as did the words on her lips. Instead she regarded him, taking in his new features. She raised a hand as if to cover her mouth but instead she reached out timidly to touch him pulling back a half inch before actually laying her palm on the side of his face. Her eyes became tearful and he sunk into her touch, tacking hold of her wrist to keep her hand there, not wanting her to take it back.

"Oh Tom...what have you done to yourself?" She asked softly. His eyes flitted open sharply, he hated that name...though with her it had seemed appropriate. "I don't care if you came back from the dead...I'm still not calling you Lord and I'm certainly not calling you _Voldemort_."

He looked up at her and when face broke into a tearful smile he lunged forward and hugged her, holding her tight.

"I always thought that was such a stupid sounding name." She said through her tears and if had been capable...he thought this might have been the one occasion where he too might have cried.


	2. Chapter 2: Grievances

Part Two

"I would ask you what it is that you've done since I last laid eyes upon you, but I have an inkling that some of the more outlandish tales I've heard are most likely correct." Elizabeth smiled softly and rolled the stem of her champagne flute between the slender fingers of one hand. She raised an inquisitive eyebrow at him and tucked a thick lock of reddish brown hair behind one ear.

He sighed and crossed his legs at the knees, re-draping his robes about himself as he contemplated the bubbles in his own glass.

He had missed Elizabeth's company more than he had known, and now that she had treated him as she had before his fall – as if nothing had happened, as if he were no longer the same man she had last shared drinks with, as if it had not been over a decade and a half – he thought he could further expand upon why he found her so agreeable.

Elizabeth was consistent, intuitive, and she had a simultaneously annoying and relieving way of alluding to what he would say before he said it...thus saving him the troubles of menial chit-chat.

She was silent and sipped from her glass, waiting for him to speak. When he did it was not the elaborate explanation and confession he had imagined he would lay upon her in a moment such as this.

"I missed you." He said simply. When she did not meet his eyes he set down his glass and leaned forward in the arm chair had not occupied for so long a time and took hold of her knee. When her eyes met his he repeated himself in a firmer tone. "I _missed _you.".

"I heard you the first time, Tom." She replied blandly. He had hoped to hear that she had missed him too, or that she was glad to hear that...that she had some sort of opinion on his feeling of longing for her and when she did not give it to him he repressed his frustration with her.

"All the while I was gone, living like nothing; with no one...I _missed_ you." He tried to impress upon her the intensity of this private longing by gripping her knee harder and gesticulating with his free hand; placing it first over his heart and then holding an open palm towards her.

She was silent a moment longer. A moment that ached to stretch the limits of his patience but finally she replied. "I believe you." She said softly and then placed her hand on his and coaxed him to relax his grip upon her. She turned his hand over to examine his palm, rubbing it gently.

"Did you miss _me_ _At all_?" He asked, unable to keep his mounting frustration from his voice. She looked at him sharply and he lowered his head, peering at her side-wise.

"Of course I did." She said sharply. "But I put you away, I packed you inside. I didn't believe I should grieve and I didn't dare hope you'd come back, so I just shut you up." Her fingers closed around his wrist and she handed it back to him before releasing it.

She stood up and swept her robes back as she turned on him. Her tightly controlled fury did not annoy him, for he had expected it from her. While her words stung and the edges of his mouth twitched with the restless desire to offer a retort, he remained silent and let her speak her fill.

"You supposedly died in that child's home! They say call him 'the boy that lived' and that he somehow defeated you. But how could that be? It would not have been a factor what skill level you possessed for that child had no wand, the child had no sense of self or of a way to combat you. And I knew..._I knew_...that whatever had happened that night, that night you said you would '_be right back'_ that it was you. _You_ caused your own demise! _You_ failed to foresee something that you ought to have! Such failures to foresee things are what have _always_ lead to your failures!"

She pressed the fingers of one hand to her brow as if it ached before continuing. When she did she spoke with animation, and dared – as only she was permitted to do – to point at him in accusation.

"Despite what your followers fancy their roles are in your life, it is _not_ one of counsel! You do everything alone and those around you are not permitted to challenge you. Thus you fail to challenge yourself! _That_ is what killed you that night. _That_ is what has caused you to be what you are now and _that is what took you from me_!"

He stood up and went to her, taking her by the arms. She pushed herself away from him and glared up at him with spite on her lips and something like hate in her eyes.

"You have caused everything in your life that has gone wrong by your failure to realize that _you_ _can be wrong_!" She very nearly spat at him and when he took her forcefully into his arms and kissed her she fought him, trying to push away and beating at him with her fists. But when he didn't let go, the fight in her fled and soon she was flaccid. She returned his kiss and it was salty with the taste of her tears.

He took her to bed then. At some points she fought him again, at others she received him as willingly as he took her. In conclusion she bit into his shoulder deeply enough to draw blood but the pain was welcome and he returned in kind to her. When their pairing was reduced to holding and kissing the taste was morbidly delightful; coppery and unique. She was exhausted after and he held her while she slept, running his long-nailed fingers through her thick and luxuriant hair.


	3. Chapter 3: Boundaries

Part Three

"You know...from behind you almost look the same." Voldemort smiled a little sadly at this. Was he ugly to Elizabeth now? His appearance certainly hadn't deterred her during their earlier excursion into a frenzied lust he'd thought he might have lost after having been gone so long from her.

"Your freckles are gone." She said softly, running a finger down the back of his neck before setting his robes about his shoulders. He had always liked this part of being with Elizabeth, the part where she dressed him. It was perhaps the most subservient thing she _would_ do.

She adjusted his robes, moving from the back to the front where she concentrated on fixing his collar. "You were so _old_ in comparison to me when I was with you before." She looked up at him with a smirk on her face and he felt a moment of confusion. Was she insulting him?

She patted the chest of his robes flat and kissed him quickly. "I guess its a little more appropriate now. I presume age isn't really a factor for the great Lord Voldemort." She crooned his name and rolled her eyes. He decided she was not insulting him, nor was she mocking him...she was merely being herself. Elizabeth had a well-developed sense of humour and since she was always able to laugh at herself...she had expected the same from him. He did his best.

"I thought you said you would never call me that." He smiled and took her hands, drawing her a step closer to himself. He smiled at her, trying to return the tone of light humour that she had set. She grinned and raised one slender brow at him.

"I never _will _call you that from a place of servitude. You don't own me, you never did...I was with you because I _wanted_ to be, not because I had to be." She moved closer to him, her form now against his as she peered up at him.

He released one of her hands to pull back the sleeve of her own robes to reveal the unmarked flesh of her left inner forearm. He ran his palm over it. "Do you _want_ to be with me now?" He asked.

She pulled her arm away, not violently but abruptly enough that whatever humour he had mustered drained from his face. "I'm not a Death Eater." She said firmly, stepping back from him and pointing a finger at his face. "I'm not doing that. I didn't then and I won't now."

It was his turn to roll his eyes and he turned away from her. "I didn't ask you that Elizabeth, I asked you if you wanted to be with me, _now_." Sometimes her repetitive assertions that she was not one of his minions stretched the boundaries of the patience he afforded her.

"I know what you asked me." She said from behind him. "And I didn't answer yet...so I haven't said no." He looked over his shoulder and found he standing with her arms crossed under her bosom, her head tilted slightly to the right, observing him.

"You said No last time I asked you." He pointed out, not without annoyance in his voice. 'The time you're referring to, you didn't ask me to 'be with you' you asked me to bloody well marry you." She shot back.

"So what if I did? How is it different?" He turned fully to face her, throwing up his arms. Most would recoil from him at such an abrupt movement but Elizabeth did not. Instead she raised her eyebrows as if preparing to enlighten a misguided child. He felt the urge to strike out at her but repressed it.

"I believe last time you asked me to be your _Queen_ in the wonderful pure-blooded empire you were so close to creating." She tapped her chin as if in contemplation. "Yes..I'm sure Queen was the word you used."

"Oh God...must you always give me the run around when I ask you a simple bloody question?' He lamented.

"Nothing you ask is simple, Tom." She pointed out. "But I do always answer. And if you want me to be with you in that manner...then I have to wonder if that's all you want from me." Her tone had softened and they were no longer bickering. He retreated to the arm chair, flopping into it and rubbing his brow.

It was a moment before she approached him and kneeled before him, slipping her fingers under his chin and bringing his face out from behind the blind of his hand.

"Tom. I _have_ missed you. If you want me to be your wife then I have to know that you understand that a wife is all I would be. What you do...what you pursue...doesn't keep me up at night but I don't care to take an active hand in it. I would do very little to strengthen your status as 'Lord'."

"I don't care about that!" He proclaimed. "Ok, alright, I fancied it would be fine to have you by my side back then. I dream Elizabeth, I envision things to be a certain way and if I dream them to be grand than what harm have I done?"

Her face had softened and she averted her dark gaze. She was sympathetic now, he knew. He had encountered a great deal of trouble intuiting her moods and intentions before but now he seemed to be much quicker on the uptake and had come to realize over time that what he had mistaken for belligerence on her part was just the manifestation of the distrust she placed in him, and it was a similar distrust that he placed in everyone. She was sympathetic to him, and it was not entirely unpleasant to find he was sympathetic with her.

"Will you just...answer me? I'm asking for the second time. I don't care how long it's been, and you never did either. I fail to see any reason to re-court you." She stifled a laugh with the back of her hand at his last choice of words.

He opened his mouth to protest, to predict and lay to rest whatever further objections she had possessed before and possessed now and if she still avoided his question he would simply have to take some liberty and be more forceful with her.

"Alright!" She said, smiling and stifling his grand retort. "Alright...yes! I want to be with you, marry you, and follow you around while you dash about reworking the wizarding world or whatever it is that you happened to be up to as of late."

He did not like it when she did not regard his schemes in the manner of grandeur they deserved, but her lack of personal interest in his endeavours was one of things that had attracted him to her in the first place. Even if it annoyed him now...it still drew him to her.

"You'll come with me then?" He asked, keeping his face and voice neutral. She nodded and stood up, holding out a hand to him. He took it and stood up, slipping an arm around her waist and cupping her cheek with the other. He kissed her and a lock of her hair brushed his brow. He liked to see her with her hair in her eyes and when he released her he narrowed his gaze at the white streak in her hair that had not been there the night before.

"What?" she asked him, some alarm in her voice. He smoothed back the tainted lock and put a smile to his lips. "Nothing...I'm just very pleased."


	4. Chapter 4: Across the Threshold

Part Four

"Do they all live here?" Elizabeth asked as she and Voldemort headed up the walkway to the old Riddle mansion. She had placed her arm in his and was looking up at the residential structure ahead of them. "It's a rather foreboding abode..." She said. He looked down at her and she smiled. "I see why you like it." She said. He snorted a laugh.

"Did you tell them you were bringing a guest?" She asked a bit tentatively. She had never liked his Death Eaters and she had never permitted him to take her near them, but now that she had accepted his request for marriage she had come easily enough. Wormtail would be there, and he would call Malfoy and his wife later. There was no need for anyone else to know about Elizabeth yet.

He tightened his hold about her arm. Either she really had missed him enough to reconsider her original denial of his request, or she had another motive. He confessed that he could not imagine another motive, for Elizabeth was painfully honest and reliably transparent. If she was upset, she said so, and if she thought he was acting like a fool she encountered no barriers in telling him so. She – unlike others – was not afraid of him. "I didn't tell them anything." He answered.

"Oh yes, I forgot. You only tell them _what to do_, not anything really about what _you_ are going to do." She gesticulated with one finger as if implying he'd failed to define a subtext to her. He was silent for several steps, not sure if she was being playfully or spitefully sarcastic.

She leaned into him, nudging his shoulder amiably. "C'mon Tom, don't worry. I'm not going to speak to you in a manner ill-befitting the greatest dark wizard of all time in front of your followers." She stopped and turned him towards her, pressing against him and raising her chin as if to kiss him. She spoke softly, just above a whisper. "That will be like sex; something I only do with you in private."

He smiled down at her, not willing to admit his relief. If she spoke to him the way she always had now that she would be with him in the presence of others, others that were meant to serve him, it would be a problem. In retrospect he should have taken this up with her, but perhaps had known deep down that she would not be so stupid as to exercise her privileges in public. If she had been that stupid he doubted he could have fancied her as much as he always had.

They resumed their canter towards the seemingly abandoned house of his dead father. He would not be wise to take up a residence that was truly his own until he had eliminated all threats to his complete rise to power. It would not be safe for him for some time and it certainly would not be safe for Elizabeth until he could ensure that no one would dare touch her, until then she would remain a secret except from those who could be trusted.

He had always been disappointed that she would not accept a mark from him but now he could see the wisdom in her decision and was thankful for her insistence. If she was discovered now, she would at least be safe from persecution; she was creative and skilled enough to weave a tail before any court that they would believe.

"None of them live here, except one who is my servant. These are sensitive times Elizabeth, I am but a rumour right now but still no risk should be taken." She nodded and he glanced at him. "Prudence dictates secrecy?" She asked, and he nodded curtly. They finished their walk towards the house and as they entered he was very glad to have her with him, even if he had not been able to bring her to a home that befitted their union.

As they entered the foyer Wormtail appeared on the stairs, hustling excuses for things Voldemort had not yet asked him about. When he looked up and saw that Voldemort was accompanied by a stranger, he stood stock still.

"My...my Lord?" the rotund, little man stammered. Voldemort did not care for how Wormtail's eyes crawled over his fiancée. He had been jealous before when he had first known her and she had seemed too young and untouchable, looked at by wizards and muggle males alike.

"Avert your eyes Wormtail! Your eyes are ill-befit to gaze upon _me_, let alone _my bride_." Elizabeth looked up at him, a faint smile on her lips. He was doing what she liked to call his 'Lord Voldemort thing' and it always seemed threaten a bout of giggles in her.

Wormtail looked to the floor, apologizing profusely before pausing again and staring at Voldemort, wide eyed and dumb-struck. He looked back at Elizabeth who made a little noise of good-natured warning at him and he looked away from her quickly. "Bride? My Lord?" Wormtail asked, not daring to look at either of them now.

"I will not repeat myself to you Wormtail. Go now and fix the room, you will leave us alone until I call upon you again." Wormtail nodded and scurried up the stairs, but before he was out of sight Voldemort called after him again. "And don't lay your filthy hands upon her things...you are not befit to touch even the most tatty of her garments." Wormtail expressed his agreement and re-doubled the speed with which he disappeared into the upper floors of the old house.

Voldemort stared after him until he felt Elizabeth tug the shoulder of his robes gently. He looked down at her and let his face soften. "You lay it on even more thickly now when you're doing your Lord Voldemort thing than you ever did back then." She said, failing to suppress a grin.

He took her hand and drew her towards the sitting room, smiling at her and pulling her against him. He slipped an arm about her waist and held her hand with the other. They danced for while as he hummed the tune she had played on the piano the night before when he had sought her out. She hummed along with him and he thought he felt something like contentment...though it had been a long time since he had felt so.


	5. Chapter 5: Predatory Etiquette

Part Five

"My Lord, she is truly stunning." Lucius Malfoy purred as he took Elizabeth's hand and brought it to within an inch of his lips before releasing it. Elizabeth was polite and gave Lucius a nod then allowed his son to perform the same greeting upon her. To the boy she seemed only watchful, but smiled kindly at him anyway.

"This is my son Draco, he is entering into his fourth year at Hogwarts, in Slytherin House naturally." Lucius Malfoy explained after Draco had released her hand. Elizabeth congratulated Draco and they proceeded to the dining table where Narcissa Malfoy was already seated.

Voldemort gestured to a seat adjacent to his, near the head of the table. The Malfoys sat across from her and he took his seat at the head of the table. He was enjoying watching the Malfoy's fawn over Elizabeth, though had the distinct impression that she was merely being polite and found little or no delight in such aristocratic mingling.

In all the time he had known her she had been bright, bubbly and almost flamboyant in her approach to others. He'd watched her for some time, curious and yet reluctant to approach her. He had been a charming young man but when had first lain eyes upon Elizabeth it had been she that was young, not him, and he had spent enough time in his endeavours that he had taken on some of the features such as the red in his eyes and he had worried he might frighten her; scare away the prize doe in the forest he had desired to take home for his own private pleasures.

He'd had women before, but she'd seemed beyond him and that had both angered and enticed him. Reminiscences of the things that had made her a prize to obtain brought a faint, smug smile to his lips.

"What is your surname Elizabeth?" Narcissa asked softly. Elizabeth took a sip from her water glass and smiled politely. "Kappel" She replied simply. It was Narcissa's turn to smile politely and Voldemort raised an eyebrow at Malfoy's wife, almost imperceptivity. Narcissa did not catch his mild expression of displeasure, but her husband did.

"And what career did you pursue after your magical education? Of course I do not mean to pry but I don't recognize your name." Narcissa cocked her head to one side, absently circling the pad of one forefinger around the rim of her crystal water glass as she observed Elizabeth.

"I'm a Healer." Elizabeth said as simply as before, but fixing Narcissa with a smirk that was almost saucy. "And no, I didn't practice at St. Mungo's, I preferred to take up a quiet practice outside of London." Elizabeth eyed Narcissa in a predatory manner, as if silently daring her to question her pedigree any further in the silky, yet insolent tone of interrogation that Narcissa had lead with. Narcissa broke the eye contact first.

Lucius, as was his nature, attempted to compensate for the moment of awkward, hostile silence between the two women with his most diplomatic and cheery voice. "A Healer? My Lord she will be useful to the cause. How much more easily we can all sleep at night knowing that our Lord is being watched over by practiced hands should anyone cause you to incur an injury!" He laughed in his best attempt at good-natured pleasure and raised his glass in a toast, his wife and son followed suit. Neither Voldemort nor Elizabeth reciprocated.

"If the Dark Lord incurs any injury of such a degree that he requires _my_ expertise – " Elizabeth stood up and placed both of her hands on the walnut table, leaning down and toward the Malfoy's who recoiled slightly. " – then my first and most important suspicion will be that one of you Death Eaters has failed to do your jobs. After I've mended him it is you who will be lucky to have me. For whatever the Dark Lord chooses to do to you in punishment for your allowance of his injuries..._will most definitely require the services of a Healer_." She hissed the last at them and it gave Voldemort great pleasure to see the fear on the faces of all three of the Malfoys who slowly lowered their glasses.

Elizabeth stood up and smoothed out the front of her dress. "Perhaps next time we meet you will be more interested in engaging me in actual conversation, not a passive aggressive cross-examination which was ever so obvious in your tone and mannerisms." Elizabeth said as she looked down at the Malfoys.

She picked up her water glass and drained it before placing firmly back on the table. "Eighty-percent of communication is delivered and received via one's mannerisms." She cocked an eyebrow at Narcissa and then turned a stony face on Lucius. "Perhaps you ought to teach your wife a little more tact."

The Malfoys were silent. Elizabeth turned to Voldemort and bent down, touching his cheek gently and kissing him lightly next to his lips. She did not say anything to him, though the smile she bestowed upon him turned back to that stony, malevolent face when she looked back at the Malfoys before excusing herself.


	6. Chapter 6: Benefits of a Playmate

Part Six

Lord Voldemort ran his hands over his stomach as if he had just ingested a rather satisfying meal. He chuckled as he did so, smiling. He strode towards one of the armchairs placed before the fire in the master bedroom and sunk into one, still grinning with satisfaction.

"You are, my Love, adequately venomous." He ran one hand over his hairless skull, shutting his eyes and recalling the poorly concealed fear on the faces of the Malfoy's as they had verbally tripped over themselves trying to apologize for offending his bride.

He let his head roll to his shoulder and opened his eyes to find Elizabeth – seated in the other armchair – grinning at him. She started to laugh and he could not help himself but to join her. It was childish laughter, the kind two delinquents might share after evading a rather persistent truancy officer.

"I'm sorry; I can't help myself when they make it so easy to play such a part." She said, her cheeks quite rosy wither either embarrassment or humour; knowing Elizabeth it was both.

"_Lord Voldemort's Wife_...what pray tell would such a witch be like?" She asked in mock seriousness, touching a finger to her chin as if in serious thought. They laughed again at this.

"I would say, Elizabeth, that you hit that particular part right on the nose." He took out his wand and twirled it between his fingers, a full smile still on his face. While he had wondered how the others would regard Elizabeth, it occurred to him now that she was another source of power with which he could bestow his will upon them. They feared him, they feared his anger, and what could possibly anger him more than to anger his bride? To what lengths would they go to keep _her_ happy in order to maintain themselves in_ his_ favour?

"Were you really as angry with Narcissa as you appeared?" Voldemort asked, still twirling his wand. When Elizabeth did not answer right away he turned to look at her. She was staring into the low, crackling fire.

"No." She said finally. "Mrs. Malfoy was curious and she was suspicious of my presence. I doubted that she would dare assume you had been tricked somehow by me and whoever she thought I was – they respect you too much to feel any reassurance in suspicions of any possible idiocy on your behalf – but all the same...I was a threat."

He crossed one leg over the other and turned in his seat to face her more fully, laying his wand across his lap. Elizabeth's assessment of others had always been a source of great interest to him, she saw things others did not and she saw them much more quickly than even he could in many cases.

She turned to face him, that tainted lock of hair at the front of her head falling across her face. "You should bring more of them here. I'd like so much to meet them." The edge of her mouth rose in a devilish smile.

"Would you?" he asked. She nodded and stood up, shedding her shawl and her shoes as she approached him. He set his wand aside as she stood over him, un-crossing his legs and then straddling his lap. She put her arms lightly about his neck and brought her face close to his. The faint scent of ginger and sugar and some flower he could not place invaded his nostrils and made him heady with contentment and desire. If there was one word to describe Elizabeth when she was the initiating party before a bout of lust between the sheets (or else ware) it was 'Tease' and he knew better than to interfere with her slow, tempting advancements for it was how she _withheld_ satisfaction that was most delightful when she chose to play this particular little game.

"Will he hear us?" she asked softly, her lips only inches from his. "That little man you called Wormtail?"

"No. Were you planning on being loud?" He asked, smirking up at her. She ran the tips of her fingers down his face, tugging at his lower lip gently before answering. "No...but _you_ might be." She whispered. "My mouth will be full."

He grinned and placed his hands on her hips, pulling her against himself. She put her hands on his chest and pushed away, standing on her knees and throwing her hair over her shoulders. She shook a finger at him as if to scold him.

"Come now Tom, you know the rules." She said and he smiled. He knew the rules when it came to this game and he found ever so much delight in breaking them, at least a little bit.

"I thought you wanted to take some time to catch up, some time to talk. Isn't that what women like?' He asked, goading her. She ran both of her hands through her hair and let them run down, over the erotic curvature of her clavicle and along the swell of her breasts. When she reached below her navel she gathered up the fabric of her skirt, revealing her upper thighs and enough of what lay above them for him to see that she had not desisted in her tendency to forsake undergarments.

"We can talk about all that later...after I've seen if you can still handle me when I'm calling the shots." She settled herself down on his lap again, gyrating her hips modestly against him. She placed her hands on his chest and leaned forward, kissing his neck softly and nipping at the skin near his Adam's apple.

"This body of yours...this new one. Is it fragile?" She whispered, breathing warm, sweet breath against his skin. He slipped one hand under her hair, cradling the back of her neck in it. He let his own fall back against the headrest of the armchair. "Not so fragile it cannot withstand _you_." He both reassured her and challenged her.

She straightened and looked down at him. She searched his face momentarily then leaned down to kiss him, pulling back an inch when he raised his face to meet hers. "We shall see about that." She said and kissed him, sucking his lower lip into her mouth and biting it hard enough to draw blood.

He moaned, both from the pain and the arousal it elicited within him. She pulled back and raised two delicate fingers to her chin where his blood had dribbled out of her mouth. He felt a similar stream running down his own chin. She mopped it up back into her mouth and sucked her fingers clean.

"I did always like how you tasted, Tom." She said and before he could answer she had slid off of him, onto the floor and began crawling under his robes. He felt her fingernails on his skin and the silkiness of her tresses as she moved past his pelvis and her head erupted slowly at the neck of his robes, she was inside his clothing and while she had never tired this particularly playful trick before he liked it very much.

"Looks like there is room in here for both of us." She said. Before he could respond she submerged back into his robes, dragging her nails down his chest and abdomen before jerking his legs apart and going to work.

He put his head back and inhaled sharply, throwing his arm over his eyes and grinning. Whatever their future had to bring, in that moment he was very sure that bringing Elizabeth back with him had _not_ been a mistake.


	7. Chapter 7: Fragility

Part Seven

"I know that one." Voldemort said clearly from where he stood in the doorway of the old, barren room in which he'd had a grand piano placed. The floors were still dusty and the curtains on the once-grand windows leeched of their former colourful brilliance. "What is that?" He asked, moving into the room.

Elizabeth did not stop her playing, nor did she look over her shoulder at him. "_Das ist Beethoven_. Fur Elise." She said melodically. He approached her and sat on the bench next to her, watching her delicate fingers dance across the keys, sometimes gently...at other times with passionate precision. There were no music notes above the keys. This piece must have been one that she had memorized. It was a sweet tune, but also sad and full of lament. He liked it.

"You have kept on with your music then?" He asked. He wanted very much to lean against her but knew that it would hinder her manipulation of the keys. He loved to watch her play and even more so to listen. She never played anything overly flamboyant nor did she stray from what she considered to be classical. He himself knew little of music, be it of the muggle variety or otherwise.

"How could I ever stop with my music? Music is very much like magic...perhaps one of the closest types of spells a muggle could ever cast upon another." She smiled delicately as she played. "There are other kinds of magic in our world...ones we do not commit ourselves to formal study in the Wizarding world."

"What were you playing the night I came to find you?" He asked. That tune had been so dark and sad and yet so beautiful it had spoken to him, he could hear in his mind snippets of it and he wanted to hear it again.

"The Moonlight Sonata, yet another piece by Beethoven." She said. "And you would like for me to play it for you, wouldn't you?" She asked. She stopped playing Fur Elise and looked at him, smiling gently. He nodded silently. She took a deep breath and placed her hands gently on the keys she would begin with and then after a moment's pause she began to play the dark, gloomy and enchanting notes that made up the piece she called The Moonlight Sonata.

He listened for several moments, looking past the grand piano out of the window towards the grounds, towards the vacant house-keeper's cottage; the home of the muggle man he'd killed after he'd first arrived in his father's home, before he'd been reborn in his new form.

"Who is this Beethoven?" He asked. "Surely no muggle could write something so beautiful." He muttered this as if he had not meant to say it aloud, but these verbalized thoughts were another habit of his which only occurred in the private presence of Elizabeth.

"Ludwig van Beethoven was a master composer from Germany. He composed sometime between the late 1700's and died in the early 1800's. I cannot tell you more than that for the biographical histories of the men that wrote the music I was trained to play were not part of my musical education." He nodded, as if this had really answered his question.

"Perhaps he was a wizard?" Voldemort ventured. She smiled but did not answer immediately, choosing instead to finish a few bars of the music first. "Not every man that was a great man was a Wizard, Tom." She said softly, neutrally. "You can still regard their work...if not their status, with reverence and respect." She added quietly.

Talk of muggles and their place in the world – especially their worth – was something he did not talk much about with Elizabeth, for she did not share his views, at least not to the extreme nature in which he did. She did not fear his disagreement however, and he had never desired for her to fear that from him.

As she played he looked out of the window, no longer really seeing the landscape outside, transfixed by her music and on the things he saw in his own mind.

"Tom..." She said softly as she played. She was looking at him and he shook himself from his internal wanderings. "What are you thinking about?" She asked.

"What I've done." He said automatically. She raised an inquisitive eyebrow at him and he wished he'd said something less revealing.

"I've come very far in my endeavours Elizabeth." He began. "Even _I_ thought I was finished when the boy destroyed my body...I thought, how could I ever return, how could I ever regain a corporeal presence of my own in which to eliminate him and proceed with my plans."

He held his hands together in his lap as he spoke, venturing only the briefest of glances towards her. She was still smiling mildly as she played. The music seemed to goad him on, urging him to confide in her. Music really was like magic it seemed.

"Lies have fed the legend of the great Harry Potter; _The boy that lived_." He snarled at this and she leaned against him, as if to soothe him, still continuing to play. He was not sure if the piece was still in progress or if she had begun to play it again, but he knew she continued to play for his sake.

"But the boy did not live because of anything that the boy did. Is that not true?" She asked, and he lowered his head to kiss the crown of hers. Her hair was soft against his lips and her scalp was warm. "It was his mother, her sacrifice which protected him from me." He spat.

"Had no one else thrown themselves before your wand to save a loved one before?" She asked. He thought about it and could think of some who had pleaded, but none that had behaved as Lily Potter had. He felt Elizabeth shake her head and he thought she disapproved of him; this automatic certainty was quickly replaced when she spoke.

"Pity that no one else so loved another that they would protect them from you as that woman did her son. That is a shame, perhaps, that the Wizarding world ought to ponder...rather than how great a deed it was that Lily Potter _did_ do what she did, but why none of _them_ had before."

She stopped playing and turned on the bench to face him, looking up with a slight craning of her neck. She was a tall woman, but still not tall enough to meet eye-to-eye with him. As he searched her face he noticed yet another white shock of hair that had not been there before. He frowned at this but she mistook his expression for something unrelated.

"If you had a child, would you do what she did?" Elizabeth asked. Her brown eyes were very curious and he debated briefly on what he should tell her or whether he should side-step the question. He had never considered such a thing. When his silence was too long for her liking she smiled and placed a hand on his thigh. "Don't worry; I wasn't going to follow that up with asking if you would sacrifice yourself for me." She chuckled as if such a question would have been ludicrous and returned to the piano, beginning to play.

He shot out his hand and placed it over hers that was closest to him, halting her resumption of The Moonlight Sonata. She started and looked up at him, a mixture of surprise and displeasure on her face. She did not like to be handled roughly by anyone, even him, without permission to do so.

"How do you know that I wouldn't?" He asked, feeling somewhat angered at how easily she had assumed he would not do such a thing for her. Did he not love her? Had he not shown his devotion to her? Did he not treat her with unequalled privilege and care?

She tore her hand away and held his gaze with her own. "Because, despite having been defeated in the past, you still believe yourself unbeatable. I think you would defend me, but it would never occur to you that even your best defence could one day not be enough and that only your life would suffice to save mine." She glared at him and for the briefest of moments her brown eyes seemed to flash with a glare of crimson. He caught it and was bewildered by it.

She stood up from the piano bench and swept her gown behind her, looking down at him. He was usually annoyed when she was angry with him, but the glare in her eyes made him worried. "I love you Elizabeth." He said, somewhat dismayed at the plea in his voice.

She blinked soberly at him. "You love me as much as you can love anything...which I dare say may not quite _be_ love."

He was on his feet and reached for her angrily, she skipped back out of reach, holding her hands away from him. Her brow had narrowed and the crease between then had appeared, a sure sign that she was not being playful, but that she was actually angry with him. That was fine, he thought, for he was quite angry now with her.

"I say these words to no one else and yet you mock me for them, you protest that Lord Voldemort does not comprehend the words he speaks!" He shouted at her.

She jutted her lower jaw at him and briefly raised her eyebrows, crossing her arms across her chest and regarded him with an unimpressed expression on her face. "There you go with the third-person 'I, Lord Voldemort' rubbish again." She said, her usually sweet voice laden with spite.

He flashed across the room, grabbing both of her wrists and wrestling her against the wall. She struggled between him and the wall. "Stop!" He shouted. "_Stop it_!" He pulled her off the wall and thrust her back, instantly regretting the manoeuvre when he heard the back of her head crack painfully against the surface.

He released his grip and she slid to the ground, her head rolling on a slack neck as her bottom hit the floor and one of her legs crumpled beneath her, the other twisting at her side.

He knelt down in front of her, cradling her head in his hand and brushing some of her hair out of her face. She winced as she regained consciousness, her eyes fluttering open. When they centered on him she tried to back away from him, encumbered by the wall behind her.

"You bastard." She breathed, but before he could apologize, to explain himself she had slipped back into unconsciousness again. He held her head in one hand and examined the other. A dark smear of blood stained his palm.


	8. Chapter 8: Love Without Condition

Part Eight

The laceration in Elizabeth's scalp had been easy enough to mend, but she had not regained consciousness yet. Voldemort hadn't thought he'd pushed her that hard, and he was worried now that he'd really injured her.

He had lain next to her in their bed with his arm around her waist and his chest against her back. The rise and fall of Elizabeth's belly reassured him that she was still with him and that she was not in distress.

After mending her scalp he had examined the shocks of white hair that had begun to appear on her head. They had caught his attention even before he had noticed their increased abundance earlier that day in the music room. He had examined the affected locks and found that from root to tip they were not gray, or even silver, but a snowy white...almost if the hairs themselves were drained of any pigment whatsoever.

He had first met Elizabeth in her earlier twenties; she was not now even _nearing_ her fortieth birthday. He had first mistaken the shocks of white hair for signs of aging...but upon close examination had felt some alarm at their uniformly white quality.

"And your eyes Elizabeth...why did they shine like they had?" He mused softly against the back of her head. She did not answer him, and he could find nothing when he attempting to penetrate her thoughts, nothing of any discernable form anyway. Her subconscious was only white and cold and structure-less. She was deeply asleep, so much so that she was not even dreaming.

He nuzzled the back of her head, smelling still the faint coppery scent of the blood that had matted some her tresses to her skull. He closed his eyes and squeezed her tightly. She would be so angry with him when she woke up, so angry that she might even leave. A tightness appeared in his chest at this thought and he knew he would not let her leave, even it meant -

He felt her stomach cave and her back arch. Elizabeth sucked in a deep, rasping breath as she returned to consciousness abruptly and without grace. Voldemort sat up immediately and leaned over her. Her eyes were wide and unfocused.

"_Elizabeth_, it's alright." He spoke softly to her, running the back of the fingers of one his hands down her cheek. Her eyes focused on him and for a moment, he sensed that she was frightened, but in an instant that fear was gone and her eyes closed, the lids falling as her body relaxed and she exhaled slowly.

"My head..." She muttered and raised one hand to the back of her head, her fingers prodding for the wound he'd already repaired. For a few moments he thought she did not remember what had happened and that perhaps he could lie to her about how she'd been injured and she would never recall that he had been responsible, but these hopes were quickly dashed when her fingers found the repair site and she winced. "You hurt me." She whispered factually. There was no accusation in the tone of her voice.

"Why did you hurt me Tom?" She asked, taking her hand away and moving to sit up. Voldemort placed a hand on her shoulder and gently pressed her back down to the pillows. He looked down at her and ran through the multitude of excuses he had thought up while holding his vigil over her. Now that she was looking up at him, awaiting an answer, none of them seemed to contain a respectable amount of fortitude befitting her just deserve.

"I got angry with you. I mishandled you. I hurt you. It was an accident though, _I swear_ Elizabeth." He confessed this to her in a lame voice, looking away from her eyes as he spoke. He thought he was feeling shame and it was very unpleasant, yet he felt it was appropriate and he registered a queer desire to feel in such a way. Feeling shame seemed part of the due that was owed to Elizabeth for what he had done to her.

"You repaired my wound." She said and he looked back at her. She wasn't looking at him anymore though, her brown eyes only rolled unfocused in their sockets. "But you really jostled my insides Tom." She moaned softly and then whimpered as she tried to sit up again. He barely even needed to touch her for her to give up the effort of sitting up.

"Should I prepare you an opium draft?" he asked. What he wanted was to take away her pain, but she did not answer him.

"I'm sorry Elizabeth. I'd say that I'd never hurt you, but I've already gone and proven myself a liar." He tried a smile, but she was not looking at him, her eyes were closing again. One of her slender hands lightly clutched his which he'd lain on her shoulder and she pried it easily off of her.

Elizabeth pressed his hand to his own chest but continued to push, rolling him onto his own back as she followed. She was weak and he slipped an arm under her to help her roll her upper body onto his chest. She had once told him that the sound of his beating heart was calming to her and helped her to sleep when she was troubled. He settled his chin atop her head and began to run the fingers of the hand that had held her waist through her hair.

He noted that the white shocks were even softer and lighter than her coloured hair. He would have to ask her, since she would know most about the aging process...but he did not think the shocks were a sign of aging. For one thing, her hair had been a uniform mahogany on the night he had sought her out and while he would admit that he occasional failed to observe things...his focus that night had been on her, on taking in every bit of what was still familiar about her and what had evolved since he'd left her and such signs of aging had not been present. It was not until the morning that he had seen the first shock of white in her hair.

"I'm really, really mad at you Tom." She muttered into his chest. "I'm really sorry Tom." She muttered even more softly than she had muttered about being angry. She whimpered delicately as she nestled closer to him.

"Why are you sorry my dear?" He asked taking a hold of the hand she had used to push him onto his back. Her fingers were soft, slender, and unlined. They were the hands of a doll, whose small, jewel-like nails had been painted a luminescent shade of obsidian. He pressed these fingers to his lips and felt her stir against him.

In his head he did the math. She had been only eighteen when she had accepted his offer of courtship. He had left her when she was only twenty. It had been only thirteen years and thus she was only approaching her thirty-third birthday in the coming month of September. He'd been about fifty-five the night he'd left her, though like she had said earlier, his age was even less of a matter now, than it had been then.

"I shouldn't have mocked you. You love me." She was whispering now and he had to keen his ears to hear her correctly. He wanted very much to hear what she had to say. "We both have weaknesses. Mine is a lack of trust, especially when it comes to love and especially love from you." She yawned and even the intake of her breath against his chest was warm and full of life.

She was just a child in comparison to him, she always had been. He had washed her blood from his palm but he felt ill having hurt a child so dear to him. Perhaps that was it though, one of the active ingredients in what made her his choice female. Perhaps it was her childish insolence that allowed her to be honest with him and allowed her not to fear him as others did.

"Maybe you can't love like other men love. But who is to say that generic love is best of all. You love me the way that you love me...and I _do_ love you, that way that I love you." She spoke softly and he could feel the gentle movement of his lips through the fabric of his gown. Voldemort kissed her fingers again; he didn't want her to fall asleep again, not yet.

"You don't love like other women love?" He asked softly, splaying her small fingers with his own and examining them.

"If I did...could I love you?" She asked. He contemplated her response and found that it was a response that deserved a well thought-out reciprocation. By the time he had decided upon a reply she had already fallen asleep again, but he didn't mind. She needed her rest.

"You told me once that like-prefers-like. If I am a monster than you must be one as well, but not one of the generic variety." He knew she could not hear him but he spoke anyway as he intertwined his fingers with hers and brought them again to his lips.

"What have you done to make you a monster?" He asked softly, whispering into her hair. As she continued to sleep he continued to contemplate what could make her like him enough so that she could offer him the privileges of love: sacrifice, devotion, acceptance, and forgiveness.

While he contemplated what love was in the terms of the things she had extended towards him, he felt a reinforcement within himself that he had not been lying or made a claim under false pretences when he had told her that he loved her.

Everything she was to him, he was to her, even the ugly things. They had both angered each other in the music room and while he had hurt her physically she had cast an arrow into his Achilles heel; his emotional heart. Had not read once, at some time in his life, that you hurt worst the ones you loved the most?

Neither could ever offer a sufficient excuse to the other, but perhaps they could be content in forgiving one another for their misdeeds. If that wasn't love in the traditional sense...it was what passed for love between the two of them. He fancied this idea that they shared a special kind of love unlike the love others had to settle for.

As she slept he hummed one of the tunes she had played for him in the music room. Eventually he too fell asleep and dreamed that he was a small child again and so was Elizabeth. They were playing in the cold snow, looking over a rabbit that they had both killed, though in the dream he did not know how they had done it. They both sniffled and wiped their noses on their woollen scarves. Elizabeth began to cry and he hugged her, embracing her shivering form with the dead animal's carcass between them. In the dream she wanted to tell their parents but he had shaken his head and covered the dead rabbit with snow.


	9. Chapter 9: Social Circles

Part Nine

"What's with your hair?" Voldemort asked abruptly as Elizabeth crossed one part of the collar of his robes over the other, ensuring they were snug but not tight. She secured his robes at the side of his waist and looked up at him. He could tell by that look that she had not failed to notice the shocks of white that had begun to taint her previously uniform dark hair.

"Old age." She said simply, and got down on her knees to straighten out the bottom of his robes, making sure they fit nicely and would flow correctly. She had become expert over their years together at dressing him.

"You are not yet old enough, Elizabeth." He contested, holding out a hand for her to take. She ignored it and stood up. She didn't look at him as she straightened the fabric around his broad shoulders, ensuring the robe hung correctly. He liked that she fussed over his appearance, but usually she was not so curt with him. Perhaps she was still angry with him for hurting her several days before, though she had asserted that the incident was forgiven.

"Perhaps it is premature aging then." She said, giving his shoulders one last pat. She looked at him finally, appraising his appearance and the smirked, her not entirely kind sense of humour returning to her lips. "Maybe _you _brought it on." She said and smiled fully. Her lips were painted that evening and she had made use of other types of make-up to accentuate her expressive dark features. Her long hair was pinned at the back of her head with a set of sticks and he had to admit that the shocks of white on either side of her head did look rather striking when her hair was pulled back in this manner.

"You did come back from the dead, Tom." She said and placed her arms around his neck. He let his hands find the familiar crook of her waist, just above her hips and he pulled her to him. "Did I scare you so badly then?" he asked.

She seemed to think about this for a moment until finally she shook her head. "No. But perhaps we can scare your friends downstairs into similar new looks." He chuckled and then lowered his head to kiss her. The stain on her lips had a sweet taste, like wine and strawberries. When he pulled away she giggled and wiped the transfer from his own lips. "That's just not quite your shade Tom, lord of immortality or not, I don't think rouge will ever be a part of your repertoire of mastery."

Laughing softly together, she slipped one of her arms around his and they exited the bedroom. Downstairs in the dining room he could hear the combined voices of those Death Eaters that had been invited to join him that evening. He had business to discuss with them, but he had also wanted to gauge their reactions to Elizabeth. Her handling of the Malfoys had been ever so pleasing and he wanted to see what would happen when he placed both Elizabeth and Bellatrix LaStrange in the same room.

"Tom." Elizabeth whispered to Voldemort as they descended the stairs. "I'm not very good at these sorts of things. He nudged her reassuringly with the side of his head.

"You will be fine" He whispered back to her. "You made a wonderful impression last time." She guffawed at this.

As they entered the dining room the delighted faces of his followers met him and then fell side-long upon Elizabeth, who he felt grip his arm more tightly. The delight had fallen from their faces and was replaced by interest on some, confusion on others...and in the case of Bellatrix LaStrange, a poorly concealed rage.

"Perhaps Lucius and his wife have told some of you -" Voldemort began, leading Elizabeth to the seat adjacent to his and across from that of Severus Snape who regarded her with a cautious interest. " – that Elizabeth is going to be my wife."

Heads snapped towards the middle of the table where an involuntary gasp had escaped the lips of Bellatrix who had clapped a hand to one mouth. Voldemort looked side-wise at Elizabeth before glaring at Bellatrix. He was pleased to see the almost imperceptible raising of Elizabeth's chin at Bellatrix's reaction.

He had warned Elizabeth about Bellatrix, the loyal and doting sister of Narcissa who had long beheld him with an unparalleled lust and infatuation. Elizabeth had not wanted to meet her at first, certain such a woman would be unable to refrain from firing a killing curse at her once she saw that Voldemort meant to take another woman as his own but he had insisted it would be just the kind of social meddling that Elizabeth would enjoy and thus she had agreed to meet Bellatrix, so long as he did not leave her alone with the woman.

Looking at the dismayed face of Bellatrix now and the trembling of her lower lip as if she were having trouble containing tears, he cocked his head to one side to examine her. "Something displeases you Bellatrix?" He asked, placing his hands on the table. All eyes moved between him and her, except for Snape's. Voldemort could see out of the corner of his eye that Snape was fixated on Elizabeth alone but that she only looked down at her empty dinner plate.

"Who is she, my Lord?" Bellatrix asked finally, her voice breaking slightly. He narrowed his gaze at her as if this were a complicated question. "I believe, Bellatrix, that I've already told you." He reached out for one of Elizabeth's hands and she obliged, allowing him to cover it with his own. "Elizabeth is my fiancée."

"Fiancée? But is that wise my lord?" Bellatrix pleaded, her voice was breathy and her watery dark eyes flitting between his face and where his hand lay upon Elizabeth's. He gripped Elizabeth's hand more tightly and saw a similar tightening take over Bellatrix who rose slowly from her seat.

"But who is she and what has she done for you?" Voldemort only cocked an eyebrow at Bellatrix. He was used to her emotional outbursts and this one would be no different. When she had sufficient dug herself into a verbal grave he would be pleased to through dirt upon it.

"Neither the Dark Lord nor myself are going to dignify your concerns which pertain only to your displeasure that despite your most heart-felt efforts, it is not _you_ who wears this ring." Elizabeth's voice was crisp, cold, and delightfully malignant as she held up her left hand, revealing the bright diamond set into the platinum band he had slipped down her ring finger. She glanced briefly at Voldemort and gave him the quickest of winks.

"Why you _bitch_!" Bellatrix screeched and before anyone had even digested that the Dark Lord's most loyal lieutenant had just been chastised and embarrassed by this stranger he had brought into their midsts, both Bellatrix and Elizabeth were on the table locked in a vicious embrace.

Elizabeth had disarmed Bellatrix without firing off a curse and as Bellatrix's wand clattered across the tabl, taking some of the broken chinaware with it, she howled. Elizabeth had sunk the fingers of her left hand into the back of Bellatrix's dark hair, yanked her head back and hit her solidly across the face with a closed fist.

Voldemort could hear himself laughing raucously as he watched this epic display of female savagery destroy the finely placed dinner service.

Elizabeth hit Bellatrix again and again, and finally she opened the palm of her hand and drove the base of it side-long into Bellatrix's nose. Blood flew and splattered the Malfoys who had not backed far enough away from the table when the fight had broken out.

Bellatrix whimpered and went limp as Elizabeth fell on top of her. Their faces were inches from one another and Bellatrix had given up the fight, clutching one palm to her shattered nose.

Elizabeth delicately extracted her unused wand from her robes and trained the tip of it between Bellatrix's eyes. She seemed to study Bellatrix for a moment and the room was silent. Even Voldemort was not sure if she would kill the cowering woman beneath her, and when he gave it a moment's thought he was even less sure he would be displeased simply for the entertainment value it would offer.

Elizabeth wiped a smear of Bellatrix's blood off of her face with her free hand and tasted it. She seemed to consider it in the manner that a wine taster might when examining the pedigree of a newly uncorked bottle. She spat the blood back into Bellatrix's face and hissed with displeasure.

"You taste like prison." She said simply and gave Bellatrix a harmless, but humiliating tap on the forehead with her wand where Elizabeth could have sent a killing curse directly into her brain.

Elizabeth got up, first to her knee's and then to her feet, standing over Bellatrix who lay tearful and fearful, clutching her shattered nose and peering out from her blood-spattered face with wide-eyes. Elizabeth trained her wand on the cowering woman again and gave it a quick flick and then turned back to face Voldemort.

She had healed Bellatrix's nose with the flick of her wand and now Rodolphus and Narcissa ran to Bellatrix, hesitantly attempting to comfort her. Elizabeth looked down at Voldemort and shrugged. He stood up and helped her down from the table where the shattered dishware was strewn about the protesting form of Bellatrix. He took her hand and he helped her step down first onto her chair, and then to the floor, as elegantly as if he were assisting her descend from a horse-drawn carriage. He beamed up at her and was pleased to see that she was blushing.

The destruction on the table had been easily fixed and dinner had proceeded as planned. Conversations were guarded and for once, Bellatrix LaStrange was silent in her seat next to her husband were she pouted and glared vehemently at Elizabeth who was pleasant and mostly silent throughout the rest of dinner, playing the part of well-mannered wife as excellently as she had played the lion at the beginning of dinner.

When he took her to bed that night, renewed recollections of her savagery had bestowed within him a stamina and unquenchable lust he enjoyed perhaps even more immensely than she had.


	10. Chapter 10: The Other Man

Part Ten

"I'm curious darling." Voldemort broke the post-coital silence between himself and Elizabeth after a long, dozy intermission in which neither really slept and neither was really awake. She stirred next to him and mumbled something intelligible into his chest.

"Why did you choose to attack Bella with your bare hands and not your wand?" He asked as he stared up at the dark taffeta that was draped across the bed posts, over the bed. She drummed her finger tips on his stomach and extended her form to kiss his neck. It tickled but he did not shy away from it.

"You don't need a wand for everything, Tom." She said. She propped herself up on one elbow next to him and stroked his chest with her free hand, tracing lines over his torso and exploring his contours.

"And now you call her 'Bella', not 'Bellatrix'? Are you only informal when those you are informal about are not around to see you be informal about them?" She asked as she looked down at him. Her forefinger stopped over his heart and tapped it rhythmically.

He twisted his neck to look at her more directly and furrowed his brow at her. "Could you possibly have fit the word 'informal' into that sentence any more times than you did just now?" He asked.

She poked him hard over the heart and he winced, laughing. "Could you possibly be so kind as to deflect my questions with something more creative than criticizing my command of the King's English?" She asked, laughing herself.

He nodded. "I could. But I wasn't really trying to avoid your question." They stopped laughing and he looked up at her, studying her youthful face. He touched her face and then let his hand drift down the locks of dark hair that framed her face to the newest shock of white hair. He flipped it up to examine it and she did as well.

"Really Elizabeth, what is going on with your hair?" He asked, not feeling self-conscious about the note of genuine concern he could hear in his own voice.

He touched her face again and ran his palm over her cheek, then her forehead, and then he touched the skin around her eyes. "I think you are mistaken about aging." He said as he flipped his hand over and touched the same places with the back of his hand. "You have yet to line."

"I'm not that young anymore, Tom." She said. "These things are to be expected." She smiled reassuringly. It was the reassuring smile she bestowed upon worried patients and he didn't like it. He stood up and pulled her up as well. He placed a hand on the crown of her head and tilted her head towards himself, examining the shocks of white hair. They ran root-to-tip and there was, in fact, another one.

She jerked her head back and blew hair out of her eyes. "Tom. I'm thirty-three years old!" She protested and pushed him back from her with a hand she placed on the center of his chest. He frowned at her.

He cocked his head to the side and raised his lack of eyebrows at her. "Thirty-three is barely free of girlhood, Elizabeth." He said sternly. She rolled her eyes and sat back, glaring at him and bare-chested.

"Yes Tom, _I know_, you're ancient." She spotted a lock of hair running over her shoulder and threw it back as if it were pestering her. "We all seem like babes before a man who'd be Lord-knows how old by now?"

He regarded her with caution. She wasn't angry, but she was annoyed by his fussing over her hair. She was chewing at her lower lip and looking around the room as if ignoring his presence. She avoided eye-contact with him when she felt they were arguing. He knew that while she enjoyed bickering with him as much as he did with her, when it threatened to become a serious argument she was no longer interested.

"If you find it that repulsive I'm sure I can get rid of it." She said with a touch of a pout. He closed his eyes a moment and drew in breath. He didn't find it repulsive. He imagined that it would be very hard for him to ever find Elizabeth repulsive. He reached out blindly and placed a hand on her knee.

When he opened his eyes he was startled for just a moment to see her staring at him, her dark eyes gleaming with that rusty crimson again. His reflexive action against the image that invaded his mind was to flinch, take his hand off of her and retreat several inches away.

When he opened his eyes again she was on her knees, holding a length of the sheet over her naked form and reaching out to touch him, an expression of concern on her face and worry in her completely normal brown eyes. Evidently she had not registered what had just happened.

He snarled in rage and grabbed the wrist of the hand she had extended so delicately towards him and twisted it against the joint. She cried out in pain and the rest of her body followed, her form fell back into a supine position on the bed.

He pulled her legs open and mounted her, not beginning another engagement but instead baring down on her. He put one hand on her forehead to stop her from thrashing. She was shouting and cursing at him and while it did register with him that he was upsetting her, the he had probably even hurt her, he had to see more of what he'd just seen.

"_Who was he_?" He snarled as she thrashed beneath him and he took hold of her face, his fingers digging into her cheeks "Who was _he_?" He shouted. She finally looked at him and realization seemed to come over her face and her body went limp as her mind became open to him.

When he'd touched her knee and then looked into her eyes, eyes that were beginning to look a little like his own, he'd felt as if he were looking out of her eyes in a similar situation but in a different room, at a different time, and more importantly...with a different man that had been the object of her eye.


	11. Chapter 11: Confession

Part Eleven: Confession

They had been dressed for some time now. To retreat from naked intimacy had seemed appropriate after he'd forced himself on her to experience the most intimate acts that had occurred between Elizabeth and her lover. He'd flitted back and forth between being in her mind and being present with what he was doing to her. When he was with her and not experiencing_ her_ experience with the past man for which he had served as the surrogate during the most despicable union that had perhaps ever occurred, he had been unforgivably unkind to her.

He stood with his back to the door of the bedroom, his arms crossed over his chest and his wand held absently in one hand. She was sitting in one of the windows with her knees drawn up to her chest, staring out the glass at the night. Whether she was really looking at the night sky or just avoiding looking at him he didn't know. If she was avoiding looking at him he knew it would be for both reasons: he had just violated her, and she had dared to have been with another man.

"You know..." She began, touching the glass of the window and dragging one finger down the pane. "You really are a monster, Tom." She said softly and put her hand back in her lap. He was far too furious with her and with what he'd learned to reply.

He had goaded her sadistically when he'd been on her. When he touched her in a way that the other man had he'd forced her to tell him that she liked it that way, forced her to admit that the other man had been better. He had forced her to tell the truth: he was not her favourite. She had cried as she'd spoken these lies to him and somehow his heart had broken in two, one half had burst into a furious flame and the other had frozen over.

"His name was William." He stiffened as she spoke the name of this other man. "He was a Physician, like me."

"You are a _Healer_. Physician is a muggle term!" Voldemort spat angrily. She rounded on him and glared, throwing an accusatory finger in his direction as if to stay his tongue.

"He was a muggle!" She shouted. Voldemort's chest swelled with anger and his grip tightened on his wand.

"You filthy muggle-loving little-"

"So are you Tom!" She screamed and stood up, throwing her hands down at her sides in anger. She was dressed in one of his robes and it was really too large for her. "Or have you really, truly, forgotten what you are?" She stared at him and he stared back, unspeaking.

"Oh, of course." She said more softly, her stance becoming more flaccid. "Everyone just conveniently over-looks that fact that their precious Lord Voldemort _is a half-blood_!" She spat the last at him and turned away from him.

He raised his chin and inhaled deeply, trying to calm himself and control his anger. His anger had already hurt her and while he felt regret for what he had done to her in bed, he felt he was righteously angry about this other man: William.

"I'm _not_ a Muggle." He managed through gritted teeth. She laughed a high-pitched guffaw that held no genuine humour at all but perhaps only a sickly sense of mirth. She turned half-way towards him, biting at the finger nail of one of her thumbs. She gave him a pitying look and he cast his arms down at his sides and took one step towards her.

"Don't. You. Dare." Her voice was as cold as ice and while no magic had been cast, she had none the less succeeded in throwing up a wall between them. "You're not the only one who is furious right now." She said more softly and turned to face him fully. "Both of us could do something to ourselves or each other right now that both of us would regret. So I suggest you stay over there, and I here."

Her voice was stern, and while he would not give her the satisfaction of outwardly submitting to her request, he did agree with her in her assessment of the danger inherent in their current situation. True, he could not be killed, but she could easily end up dead by his hand, or even her own if either of their tempers began to flare out of control. Neither would he find acceptable.

"You were dead, Tom." She said plainly. "Dead for five long and lonely years, you were." She took a few steps in his direction, but she did not near the half-way border of the room.

"I'm not one of your minions and I didn't believe you'd ever come back. _Yes_, I felt as if you were still out there somewhere." She tapped her chest over her heart. "But I know, Tom. _I know_ about loss and I know that when grieving cannot take its natural course we can be prone to such beliefs, such _false convictions_!"

"It was not a false conviction." He said darkly. In reality, he knew he should not have been so surprised that she had been with someone else in his absence. Could he really blame her? Perhaps he could not, but he could not help himself from feeling as though he could.

"I always believed that it was a false conviction, all the while it was present. And while I could not relieve myself of that conviction I went on with my life and I loved another man!" She was not speaking loudly, but her tone was almost that of a soft wailing, as if she were speaking to him from a place of deepest anguish far below the surface of the darkest waters.

She looked down at her hands and seemed to study them for some time before dropping them to her sides and looking at him. The fight in her seemed to have fled for the moment and she addressed him with weariness in her eyes and in her voice.

"He died, Tom, just like you did. I was alone again, and still I carried my torturous conviction that you were not dead, and still I went on with my life again. And here I am now with you, the man I loved first and the man I loved most and he has just forced himself upon me in ways I hope I never have words to describe and he is angry that I cared for someone else and he is punishing me for it...for being human."

She turned away from him, but not before he had seen a single tear fall freely from her face to the floor. She strode towards the window again, his robes upon her form trailing behind her. She approached the window with a sort of serenity, a serenity only those purged of their sins were entitled to, and he supposed that she was. Whether he chose to pardon her or not she was free of the bondage of secrecy.

When she took her seat again at the window and curled in on herself, she looked out towards the moon. He wanted to go to her, to do something for her, but he could not move. He stood silent and still, staring at her with longing and regret. He was angry and someone would suffer for her indiscretions against him, but it would not be her, at least not anymore. She had suffered at his hand more than she deserved.

He was not sure how long had stood there when she spoke. "Would you go away, Tom? Just for a little while, please?" She did not look at him and finally he looked away from her, resigning himself to her dismissal.

He left her alone for many days. On several occasions he approached the room intending to enter, but he could not bring himself to do so. Not yet. He had broken his most prized possession and once it was healed – if it healed – it would let him know.


	12. Chapter 12: What About Bella?

Part Twelve: What About Bella?

"Don't sit there." Voldemort commanded absently as he entered the music room where he'd found Bellatrix LaStrange poking at the piano he'd had brought into the house for Elizabeth. Bellatrix fixed him with a pouty face and stood up, watching him as he strode towards one of the windows to look out over the grounds.

Killing the grounds keeper might have been a mistake, he thought. The old Riddle estate was in a rather scraggly way. Below him, moving along the over-grown pathways of what may have once been an impressive garden was Elizabeth. She was still dressed in his robes, and as they billowed about her form she seemed not to be walking, but to be gliding. He had thrown robes at her after their fight and he thought that it was no coincidence she was still dressed in them. It was perhaps her passive aggressive way of grudgingly accepting his ownership of her.

"My Lord?" Bella spoke sternly and he spared her a spiteful glance. Elizabeth had finally come out of the room that morning; he had awoken to the sound of her playing the piano Bellatrix had welcomed herself to. When he'd descended from the upper rooms to look in on her, she had not acknowledged him. While he had been disappointed he had not been surprised.

He'd hurt her very badly. He'd broken not only her trust but he suspected he'd broken something else inside her. He was confident she would come around, but for the current time she had asked him to go away for a while, and he had.

He placed the palm of one hand on the glass, not really caring if Bellatrix discerned his longing for the woman beyond. Elizabeth was thinking on something, and when she did that it was best to leave her alone. She would prefer – he knew – to work out the reasoning behind his actions for herself rather than listen to any explanation he could give. She didn't trust other people's declarations, only her own deductions. She would rule in his favour, he knew, but still there was a sense of uneasiness within him. What if for once, she did not forgive him?

A warm hand curled around his wrist. He looked first at it, and then down at the owner; Bellatrix was looking up at him with her dark, dramatic eyes. He stepped back from her and pulled his hand away. He regarded her with wide-eyed contempt.

"You dare to touch Lord Voldemort?" He asked, looking her up and down as if surprised at the liberty she'd taken. He wasn't really all that surprised. After Elizabeth had broken Bellatrix's face he'd been waiting for the dark, little sadist to become bolder if left alone with him. He was not blind to her longing for his intimacy.

Bellatrix placed her hands behind her back and rocked once, twice, on the heels of her feet like a small school girl in trouble. He suspected that even when he was chiding Bellatrix she delighted in it. She looked down at the floor and then up at him, her lower lip put out in a pout that might have been becoming on her small face in the eyes of another man.

"I heard _she_ doesn't have to call you that." Bellatrix said softly, her dark eyes flickering briefly towards the window and then back to him.

He closed the gap between himself and Bellatrix in only one stride and thrust the palm of his hand across her face. He hit her with such force that she spun and fell to the floor. "Is it such a burden to address the Dark Lord as is proper?" He shouted angry, looming over her.

Bellatrix sat before him and held one hand to her offending cheek. She smiled a little as she looked up at him. "No of course not, my Lord!' she said with such cheerful effluence he stood back up and retreated a few short paces.

"Stand up, stand up." He said with haste, gesturing at her to stand. She stood up and straightened her dress and then ran her hands over the voluptuous flow of her hair. She put her hands behind her back and smiled at him.

"_She _has a name and you will use it." He glared at the cheerful, dark woman as he went back to the window. "Whoever told you that Elizabeth does not address the Dark Lord as she should was woefully mistaken."

Bellatrix shrugged and followed him over to the window to look out over the grounds. Elizabeth was still out there and she was currently standing at the pond, hugging his robes around her as the wind outside tore at them. Her back was to him but she seemed only to be staring into the water.

"Why are you here Bellatrix?" He asked finally, tired off her company at the window and wishing she'd go away.

"I desire to speak about _Elizabeth_." Bellatrix said softly, stabbing a finger at the glass in the direction of where Elizabeth was outside.

"Oh I'm quite sure that all of you have been talking about Elizabeth." Voldemort replied absently. Elizabeth had crouched down at the lip of the pond and seemed to placing her hand in the still water there.

"I worry, my Lord, that your confidence in me has faltered since Elizabeth-"

"- broke your face?" He finished for her. Bellatrix swallowed the end of her sentence and nodded at him. He smirked at her before returning his gaze towards Elizabeth.

"You are my best and most loyal Bellatrix, Lord Voldemort places great faith in you." He said. He could feel her well up with pride next to him. "But..." He added and turned to look down upon her. There had been a smile on her lips which faded as he continued. "...you were disarmed – without the use of magic - and then defeated. I wonder, what good are you to me without a wand?" He asked.

"I am of infinitely more use to you than she!" Bellatrix blurted.

"You are too bold." He hissed at her.

"_She_ is bold!" Bellatrix protested. She flung one arm towards the window to indicate Elizabeth. If he had not been sure before, he was very sure now that Wormtail had been bold himself; listening to the rhetoric shared between Voldemort and Elizabeth while in private. Voldemort would deal with Wormtail later and it would not be a kind dealing.

Bellatrix seemed to recover herself, though her bosom heaved with the effort. "My Lord, you favour her above all of us." She said.

"Elizabeth is not _one of you_." He said. "She does not do my bidding." He added and looked back out the window. Elizabeth was still kneeling before the pond. Her white and brown hair blew erratically in the throes of the wind.

"She should." Bellatrix said, still pouting.

Several moments had passed in silence as he watched Elizabeth in the gardens, thinking about what Bellatrix had last said. "Leave my home." He commanded finally and to his relief, Bellatrix left with only a courteous acknowledgement of his dismissal and left him to his thoughts.


	13. Chapter 13: Morphine

Part Thirteen: Morphine

"My Lord?" Voldemort rolled his eyes at the sound of Wormtail's simpering voice. He turned in his chair, quill still in hand, to face the little man in the doorway of his study. Wormtail was holding a silver supper tray with a meal upon on it and looking as scared as he always did, perhaps a little more this time.

"Lord Voldemort does not recall asking for the preparation and presentation of a meal." Voldemort said coolly before turning back to his parchment and waving a dismissing hand at Wormtail.

"No, no my Lord. The food is for _the Lady_." Voldemort set down his quill and looked briefly out of the window at the night sky before standing and turning to face Wormtail. He cast an impatient glare at the man and the snivelling creature began to speak.

"My Lord, the Lady said she was hungry when I last looked in on her." Wormtail did not look Voldemort in the eyes; instead he cast them from side to side as he spoke. If Wormtail had not been holding the tray Voldemort had no doubt the little man would have been wringing his hands.

"Then you ought not to keep her waiting if she is hungry!" Voldemort growled and Wormtail cringed. Something on the tray rattled.

"My Lord, _the Lady_, suggested that perhaps, if the Dark Lord was willing, _he_ would bring her the meal." Wormtail had recited this request with his eyes squeezed firmly shut in the manner that one might when trying desperately to recite a particularly difficult poem or passage before a very cruel and critical classroom.

"Elizabeth requested this?" Voldemort ventured gently. Wormtail opened his eyes and nodded vigorously.

"Oh yes, My Lord. Her melancholy seems to have lifted." Wormtail offered a smile that served only to be grotesque in its delivery.

Voldemort strode quickly to Wormtail and snatched the tray from his shaking hands before pushing past him.

When he approached the master bedroom he found the door was ajar. He slipped inside to find Elizabeth in bed, laying on her side and facing the window away from him. He was not sure if she was asleep so he placed the supper tray on the bedside table that would have been his own if he had been sharing the bed with her for the last few weeks.

She made a sleepy sort of noise and rolled over to face him. Her dark eyes were heavily-lidded and she stifled a yawn with the back of one pale hand. Her cheeks were flushed but the rest of her face was pale.

"I'm done being alone now." She said simply. He looked her over and sighed gently. She had asked him to go away for a little while and it had been nearer to a month that he had left her to herself.

"I should hope so, considering that _that_ was _not _a short period of time, Elizabeth." He said as he looked down on her. She was thinner now, and she still wore a set of his robes. He was glad she had requested food and he hoped that a week or two of more hearty meals would fill-out her figure again.

She laughed gently and extended one arm; her fingers out-stretched like a child gesturing for an object they would like placed in their possession but did not know the word for. He regarded it with caution.

"Come lay with me, Tom?" She asked, and he looked at her face. Her eyes were still red and the time alone had made them a bit sunken. He saw that there was a very light sheen of sweat along her hairline and he wondered if she was with fever. Even with the traits of such misery on her face she was still beautiful and he wanted very much to embrace her.

He took her hand and lay down on the bed facing her. They were not touching each other save for the holding of hands and despite his desire to hold her tightly to him, he resisted. She had finally called him back and she could just as easily send him out again. The need for permission was still present and until that was abolished he would play by the rules.

"I brought your meal." He offered and she smiled. She sat up on one elbow to peer over him at the contents of the tray.

"He's not much of cook, is he?" She asked and lay back down, giggling softly. Voldemort could not help but smile. To hear her voice sprinkled with something other than the morose monotone of melancholy brought about a smooth sort of warmth in his chest and his face.

He reached out slowly and placed his palm against her cheek. She was warm, but not as warm as she should have been, or perhaps it was the quality of the warmth that was wrong.

"What were you doing while you were alone?" He asked. He knew she had been working on preparing herself to see him again, but she looked haggard enough that he suspected something else. Not something malevolent per-say, but something besides cooling off from the heat of anger.

She nestled her cheek deeper into her pillow and gripped his hand tighter. "I was reading." She said and then looked around the room to indicate his books.

He ran the tip of on finger over the tip of her nose and she giggled. "You always did have _this_ stuck in a book, didn't you?" He teased and her smile was bright, though her lips were a bit pallid.

She let her giggles subside and then fixed him with serious but kind eyes. "I love you, Tom. But I can't forgive you for what you did. If you ever do anything like that again I will leave you." His smile melted away but he listened. He had been prepared for some form of a scolding or a declaration of new boundaries from her: it was her way.

"You could find me, wherever in the world I might run. That's why I wouldn't run, but I would leave you. You would no longer have me." She smiled softly then and extended her neck to press her lips gently to his. He was too confused by what she had said to kiss her back, but she seemed not to notice.

After she kissed him she sat up and yawned again. "I'm sorry. I've been a little liberal with some compounds and they've left me a little sleepy."

"If you need a Healer...or a potion of a particular kind, I could procure either for you." He offered as he too sat up. He reached out and took her hand. She shook her head, still smiling.

"I'm a healer, Tom. I can prepare my own drafts and tonics." He cringed a little at the word 'healer' given that he had yelled at her about it when they had fought.

He looked past her to the bed stand on her side and saw what he thought he would find. There were two small glass bottles with popped corks and twine about the necks: potions. But there was also a short, fat glass vial with a silver top and next to it, the tell-tale evidence of what she had been doing.

He stood up from the bed as she crawled toward the tray of supper. He stood, looking down at the detritus on her bed stand as he heard her pour herself a cup of tea. He picked up the objects that offended him.

"That's a hypodermic syringe; it's used for delivering medication into the subcutaneous fat, the muscle or directly into the blood stream. That blue strip of rubber is a tourniquet meant to bring up the blood vessel. And that bottle-" He held up the short, fat glass vial as she pointed at it during her unbidden explanation. "- is morphine. It is used for the treatment of pain." She was entirely neutral about the subject.

"This is muggle medicine..." He mumbled, staring at her. He was unsure as to whether or not he was angry to find such primitive medicines at his bride's bedside. He decided that he would stay his emotions for a moment and allow only curiosity to dictate his actions.

Elizabeth crossed her legs and held a teacup to her lips before speaking again. "I practiced with muggle's mainly; I have most of my professional life. _You know that_. 'Doctor Kappel, her touch is almost magical, she's so good'." She shook her head at the last and he allowed himself to smirk at the humour.

It was true. She had been a Healer in the village where he'd met her, and her practice had been open to all. Wizards and witches knew what she was and they received traditional magical treatments, but muggles were no better for not knowing, for she was as well-versed in their medicine as she was in wizard's medicine.

"If this is for pain, why were you taking it?" Voldemort asked, setting the instrument, the strip, and the vial back down on the table.

"To ease my mind." Elizabeth said softly. "In muggle medicine it would be called abuse, but there is nothing quite like the derivatives of the oriental dragon to ease the mind when it is in pain." Voldemort frowned at this. He didn't understand her references sometimes, especially when they were muggle-related, or at least he assumed they were muggle-related.

She sipped her tea and looked up at him again. "What did Bellatrix want the other day?" Elizabeth asked.

Voldemort inhaled deeply then sat down on her side of the bed. "Actually, she came for her own selfish reasons, but she did bring to mind a thought that I wish to discuss with you, if you are willing to discuss it." He spoke gently and avoided her eyes until he was done.

She took the teacup from her lips and rested it in her lap. "What do you wish to discuss." She asked and he ventured forth with his proposition and the reasoning behind it.


	14. Chapter 14: The Wife's Place

Part Fourteen: The Wife's Place

"It's not that I'm opposed to what your suggesting, in fact it fits with your whole "I am Lord Voldemort and this is my new regime thing', but I am no duellist. I would be cut down by any Auror!" Elizabeth spoke animatedly as she paced the master bedroom, his robes still on her body and trailing behind her.

For some reason she had developed a liking for his wardrobe and he himself did not mind sharing a boudoir with her. Like the ring on her finger, having her dressed in his clothes was another subtle sign of ownership, and it appealed to him.

"Even the test that you're suggesting, this 'match' between me and Bellatrix, she'd murder me in moments." Elizabeth laughed again and turned to face him, placing her hands firmly on her hips. "What could I possibly protect _you_ from?"

Voldemort smiled up at her and motioned with both of his hands for her to come to him. She obeyed and he took her hand as she settled onto his lap. He ran his fingers through her hair, noting the increase in white streaks.

"You defeated the best of my Death Eaters at a dinner table without using your wand once." He said softly, curling the end of one long lock of hair around his fingers affectionately. "And it got me to thinking about what would happen if my lieutenants – or even I – were disarmed in battle?" He gestured with one hand to himself and Elizabeth reached out to stroke first his hand, and then to place his hand over his heart, her hand over his.

"Do you want me to be back up?" She asked, genuinely curious. Usually she asked him questions when she already knew the answer or had a general idea of the answer, but her face now was all honest inquiry. He kissed her cheek softly. The healthy warmth had returned to it.

"You're trained. You can handle yourself without magic, and while I deplore those without the use of magic, your ability to become victorious in battle without magic, despite having it, makes me see a great weakness amongst my Death Eaters and subsequently a great strength in you."

"I don't train anymore. That was in my youth. My reactions now, are more like reflexes, it's like riding a broom, you never really forget. But I am far from as limber as I once was." As Elizabeth spoke she shook her head, as if already denying him his ventured request.

"Limber." He said stopping her, rolling the word on his tongue. "I think you are quite limber." He raised an eyebrow at her and she swatted his chest playfully.

She got out of his lap and stood before him. She placed her feet apart, held out her arms parallel to the floor with her palms flexed at a ninety-degree angle at the wrist and then seemed to let her feet fall out from under herself as she hit the floor, her legs shot out in either direction from her torso. She twisted from side to side, facing forward, and then favouring each hip. She winced slightly and looked up to the left as she did this, as if evaluating her flexibility and finding it less than to her liking.

"As I said, you seem limber enough to me." Voldemort said, watching her as she struggled against the natural resistance of her joints.

Elizabeth's father had insisted she be educated in the war tactics of the East and she had done well as young girl and gone on to perform at several notable occasions as an adolescent, but she had retired after early adulthood. In fact she had only been teaching locals in the village where he'd met her at the time he had discovered her.

"I guess I could get myself back into decent enough shape. I'd never fly around the floor like I used to, but I could still get myself back into well enough shape to tie on a sash again." She leaned forward; her legs still extended out at either side of her and placed her elbows on the floor, her chin in her palms. "If I trained, I could probably keep one or two wizards off of you for a few moments." She wiggled the toes on her feet as she spoke and he smiled down at her.

"So you want me to fight Bella, defeat her, and this will prove to your followers the importance of my place next to you, but also give me a place in battle – something they will actually respect – and defeat her without a wand?"

Voldemort nodded at her summary. "I think it should be done after the wedding, perhaps as part of the celebration. Everyone loves a good duel." He said as the thought came to him.

"You would put me in danger on our wedding night?" Elizabeth teased.

Voldemort leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees as he leaned down to speak to Elizabeth. "You and I both know, that if I throw you and Bella into a pit, it's _Bella_ that need worry about being in danger on _our_ wedding night." He reached out and tagged the tip of her nose with his finger and she giggled, resuming a more normal sitting position. He enjoyed offering this affectionate gesture and she always seemed to receive it happily.

"Ok. It makes sense." She said plainly. She stood up and dusted off her bottom. "Your very clever, Tom."

"I know." Voldemort said as he sat back in his chair. "Now, do you think we could find a use for your contortionist skills in bed?" He asked, grinning. Elizabeth smiled and shrugged before falling backwards onto the bed and motioning for him to follow.


	15. Chapter 15: Eastern Magic

Part Fifteen: Eastern Magic

"I never travelled to the East." Voldemort said thoughtfully as he continued to circle the empty ballroom. Elizabeth had situated herself around the center of the room and was stretching; pulling her appendages in ways that looked extremely painful, and yet the only evidence of any discomfort on Elizabeth's part was the odd wince that took over her face now and then.

"That doesn't surprise me, Tom. With your woefully poor understanding of the world at large, what are the odds you would have known there was magic to be found in China or Japan, or any of the other eastern pools of spiritual enlightenment?" Elizabeth winked at him after she said this.

"You know, if there are any muggles in the world that practice magic without knowing it, it's the people of the East." She was saying as she continued to contort herself. "They know there are natural powers within and around themselves, and some of them spend their whole lives devoted only to the mastery of themselves and these powers."

Voldemort was becoming increasingly fascinated by all of this talk of a type of magic he knew nothing of. This reinforced for him that Elizabeth had been a very good choice of a mate. She was not only a valuable and respected companion; she was turning out to be more useful than any other wizard or witch he had procured for his own service.

She stood up straight and swung her arms back and forth before snatching her wand from where she had tucked it into the black-coloured sash she had tied around her waist. She took it in both hands and held it first to her bowed head and then with her eyes closed she slowly lowered it, the point up, until it came to rest at her navel. Voldemort cocked his head to the side with curiosity as she began to breathe slowly and deeply.

As suddenly as she had become still, she stepped forward and thrust out her wand. "_Incantato Doppelgangaro_!" She commanded and a black and silver blast of light and shadow shot from her wand. Where she had aimed the spell –

- Voldemort snapped up to his full height and stared with surprise and wonder. Elizabeth was tucking her wand back into her sash, but several feet in front of her stood _another_ Elizabeth – an exact copy – that stood as still and rigid as a statue.

"Never seen that one?" Elizabeth asked in an almost casual tone. He looked at her and she grinned. He looked back at the second Elizabeth feeling somewhat dumb-founded. Normally he would have detested the feeling of experiencing magic he had never seen before, but now he was merely filled with wonder and hungry curiosity.

"You can touch her." Elizabeth said - the real one. "She's my doppelganger, a copy. She's a phantom of sorts but she can do what I can do, though she requires instruction from me."

Voldemort approached the Doppelganger and circled it. If the real Elizabeth had not been standing nearby he could easily have mistaken the false one to be her. There was not a feature about the Doppelganger that was different from the real Elizabeth, she was even dressed the same.

"What are you going to use her for?" He asked as he reached out and touched the cheek of Doppelganger. The Doppelganger didn't move, it merely stood still like a doll fresh off an assembly line, and yet its chest rose and fell with the slow rhythm of breathing.

"Well I need an opponent to practice on." Elizabeth said as she met him at his side. She was nose to nose with the Doppelganger and it was an uncanny sight, even to him. "She will fight me knowing all that I know and in whatever manner I wish. Or she'll stand there and either defend herself from me, or just let me beat her to a pulp; it all depends on what _I_ want her to do. "

Elizabeth thrust the palm of her hand up and under the doppelganger's chin and Voldemort stepped back, surprised by the abruptness of Elizabeth's strike. The Doppelganger stumbled but resumed its previous position. There was no evidence of injury.

Elizabeth pressed the palm of her hand to the Doppelganger's forehead and stepped back. The Doppelganger widened her stance and raised her fists. "She's ready now." Elizabeth said as she walked away from the Doppelganger and took up a similar stance several paces away, facing the Doppelganger.

"Now, Eastern combat magic is elemental magic. It is dependent upon the four points of the compass and the elements associated with them." Elizabeth was saying. "When muggles fight, they can use these powers, though not to the extreme lengths that you or I could, and they cannot see the magic as we do."

"What do you mean 'see'?" Voldemort asked. Elizabeth motioned for him to take several steps away from both her and the Doppelganger.

"Right now my back is to the East, and thus it will be air that assists me in my fight against the Doppelganger. The Doppelganger's back is to the west, and thus it will be water that assists her. This magic is arranged this way because opponents will always face one another and thus be opposite, therefore opposing elements will 'back them up', so to speak."

Voldemort listened with great interest, noting that if Elizabeth's back was to the East and the Doppelganger to the West, then his was to the North. "What element backs the North?" He asked.

Elizabeth looked at him and smiled. "Earth: mother of all elements." Voldemort smiled at this, he liked the sound of Earth. "Now watch." Elizabeth softly and then she moved forth to engage the Doppelganger.

Voldemort was no hand-to-hand combat fighter and thus to him all the kicking and punching and other assortments of striking seemed a flurry to behold. It was further complicated by the colours that erupted from the hands and the elbows and the feet and the knees as they struck their opponents. Elizabeth's strikes were a swill of red and purple, while the Doppelganger's strikes were a similar swill of blue and green.

The fight did not last long for Elizabeth turned swiftly and brought up her leg, hooking the Doppelganger across the face with her foot. The Doppelganger stumbled in a spin but before it could move back into the engagement Elizabeth had taken a low stance, dropping down on her back leg, with her front leg extended forward and her arms out behind her with the palms up as if they were wings. She pushed off from her back leg and threw both her palms forward and to his delightful amazement a forceful gust of torrential wind seemed to gather from behind her and then thrust forward, picking up the Doppelganger and sending her flying across the room, where she landed near the opposite wall with a painful thud.

Elizabeth stood up and as the Doppelganger got to her feet Elizabeth clapped her hands twice and the Doppelganger resumed the original stock-still stance she had assumed upon being conjured.

Elizabeth took out her wand again and flicked it in the direction of the Doppelganger, which vanished in a swirl of both shadow and light. Elizabeth tucked the wand back into her sash and turned to face Voldemort. "Did you like that?" She asked simply and he rushed forward to pick her up and embrace her. He had liked it very, _very_ much.


	16. Chapter 16: Plans

Part Sixteen: Plans

"Does all this banter about the wedding bore you, my love?" Voldemort asked, smiling contentedly as he strolled through the scraggly Riddle grounds with Elizabeth at his side, her arm in his and their shoulders touching.

"I'm just not one for impressive sorts of gala-like things is all. I think what you have in mind is beautiful and will be very impressive, but I'm not sure..." She said slowly. Her hair – still becoming whiter – blew about in the wind, occasionally flowing in a manner in which it delicately whipped his shoulders and the base of his neck. The tickle of her hair was pleasant and brought goose-bumps to his flesh.

"What aren't you sure of?" He asked, relieved that he sounded casual in saying this. Was it possible she was reconsidering the marriage or that she wanted to wait longer than he did? He didn't want to wait, and with the winter season soon approaching he wanted very much to take advantage of the majestic weather that would come with the snow and the ice and the general cheer of the holiday season. He had relished in visions of what Elizabeth might look like in a gown and veil as white as the snow itself and he wanted that vision to become manifest.

"I'm just not sure there is anything _I_ can add. You have it all covered it seems. I have no objections to what you want to do with this wedding and I can't think of anything that I would like to add." Voldemort felt a silent sigh of relief in his chest when she answered.

What she was saying was true. Elizabeth was a simple woman in the matters of life that most people went out of their way to make complex. Internally she was a complex soul and perhaps her simple and quaint life preference were a compliment to that. But then again, he was a complex man, was he not? And he _did_ enjoy grandeur.

Elizabeth was also a woman of service. She had chosen for her life to be spent in the service of others, including those entirely unworthy of her service, like the muggles she provided medical support to. He felt it was an unhealthy fixation that she possessed; this service of others while neglecting her own life and the pleasures that could have come with it. He planned to remedy her situation by providing a lavish and comfortable life for her. Perhaps when others served her, she would come to realize that her place was above others, not below them.

"Who will attend the wedding?" Elizabeth asked. She was looking away from him as if surveying the grounds.

"My Death Eaters and their families, I've never met _your_ family but I was hoping perhaps we could invite them as well." Her hold on him tightened briefly and she looked down at the ground. He could see she was biting at her lower lip. She did not like his Death Eaters, he knew, but it was paramount that they were married before the contingent of his men. The Death Eaters had to see the ceremonial seal of their union for many reasons.

"You know that I won't have my family come." Elizabeth said as she brushed an errant strand of hair off her brow and tucked it neatly behind one ear. He nodded slowly. He figured that she would not have her family at the wedding and that she would likely have told no one of whom she was currently spending her time with, let alone taking vows with. Voldemort did not believe that Elizabeth was ashamed of him, but she was a cautious woman and she kept the ones she felt she needed to protect at more than an arm's length when there was a risk that her actions could reflect trouble onto them. Yet again, she was exhibiting her natural predisposition to protecting others at the cost of her own enjoyment.

"I think that the dark man, Severus, should be the one to seal the bond of marriage though." Elizabeth said with decisive firmness. She looked up at him and he nodded his agreement.

Snape was a reliable servant and while he himself had already considered Severus and rejected the idea, if Elizabeth also selected him, that he had not been wrong to consider Severus, but instead had been wrong to reject him.

He had rejected Severus because of his station at Hogwarts as a spy on Dumbledore which required Severus to sometimes feed some truthful information about Voldemort while also delivering the many falsities he offered to the old Headmaster of Hogwarts. The best lies were hidden amongst truths but the existence of Elizabeth was truth he did not want serving as a shroud for the lies he needed planted in Dumbledore's confidence. Voldemort was not comfortable with the idea of anyone outside of his circle – especially someone like Dumbledore – finding out that Voldemort had taken a bride. Elizabeth could very easily be used against him as an Achilles heel, for Voldemort would never deem her expendable.

"You will duel Bellatrix in the arena before the wedding. You were fair to allow Bellatrix time to prepare herself for combat without a wand and she should be ready to confront you before the wedding." Voldemort spoke as he day-dreamed about what the duel between Elizabeth and Bellatrix might be like.

The two women would be battling for the official position as his own personal bodyguard and while he held no doubts that Elizabeth would win the alternate combat matches, he knew she would not win the wand match. Bellatrix was simply too adept at wand combat even with the killing curse banned from the competition for Elizabeth to beat her.

"I confess, Tom. I am anxious about this duel. It seems as if its purpose is not so much to select a bodyguard for you, but to establish another display of your taste for the grandiose which in turn will appeal to your Death Eaters and amplify their allegiance to you." Elizabeth coughed softly into her fist after speaking. She had been afflicted with a mild cold for a few days and it had yet to lift.

"Elizabeth, you know me far too well." Voldemort mused and leaned over to kiss the crown of her head affectionately. She was as correct about the luxurious wedding plans he'd been babbling about as she was about the match he had set up between herself and Bellatrix.

"I think we both know that in magical combat Bellatrix ought to be at your side, not I." Elizabeth continued. She was correct about this also, but he had decided that for certain future ventures, he would insist on bringing Elizabeth with him.

Elizabeth was a rare opal of defence that the enemy would not be expecting, nor would they know what to make of her should they ever engage her in combat. Her element of surprise was what would make her immensely valuable at his side whenever he chose to venture away without his Death Eaters, for he could handle the magical wand combat – there was no wizard as adept as he – and she could handle everything else.

And if they ever encountered Harry Potter and the child attempted to use his signature disarmament spell on either Voldemort of Elizabeth, then Elizabeth would make easy work of little Harry Potter.

Voldemort patted her hand reassuringly and smiled as they continued to walk through the grounds. He could not help but to wonder what Dumbledore would make of Elizabeth should the old man ever have the misfortune to oppose her. He wondered with even more delicious fervour what the old man would make of Elizabeth _and_ Voldemort, together, if he even had enough time to make anything of them at all before dying at their hands.

_A/N: I just wanted to thank all of you who have been reading this fanfiction. 'Sonata' has become a lot of fun for me to write and it pleases me immensely that some of you have spent your time and attention following it as it progresses, especially those who have taken the time R&R. – C.E. _


	17. Chapter 17: The Dress

Part Seventeen: The Dress

Voldemort was aware that it was against regular customs for the Groom to see the Bride before the wedding, even it was just the bride in her wedding gown _before_ the wedding, but he had been salivating at the prospect of watching Bellatrix LeStrange and Narcissa Malfoy undress and then redress his bride as different gowns were placed upon Elizabeth's body. Voldemort fancied the Black sisters to a point. Narcissa had never been an official Death Eater, but her husband had been very useful in the past, despite his recent indiscretions and acts of floundering stupidity.

"You know Elizabeth, you have such long and lush hair, we should certainly arrange it creatively in a delicate up-do." Narcissa was saying as she combed out Elizabeth long, streaked hair. "But why you are acquiring these ribbons of snowy hair, I must wonder." Narcissa added thoughtfully, frowning. Elizabeth flashed a concerned glance towards Voldemort who was sitting comfortably in an armchair watching the female events unfold before him.

"I'm not much of maestro in such areas of cosmetic beauty, so I will have to trust your judgment Mrs. Malfoy." Elizabeth had been so sweet and polite to the Black Sisters that it should have afflicted the two married women with tooth aches. Narcissa appeared to have completely forgotten the confrontation Elizabeth had pulled her into when they had first met and seemed to genuinely enjoy fussing over Elizabeth.

Bellatrix was not as delighted at having been appointed the task of preparing Elizabeth for a station she herself would have liked, but Bellatrix acted only in manners that she believed would please Voldemort, and thus she took to her duty well, but spent much of her time looking at him with that longing dark gaze that begged for connection.

Elizabeth stood naked between the two women who were going over her inch-by-inch and while there was nothing inherently erotic in the way the two sisters touched his bride, it was delightful to watch three women in such an intimate state with one another. And to see Elizabeth flushed with embarrassment was a savoury delight he wished never to lose the taste of. She was not embarrassed to be naked in front of him, but the situation was awkward for her and it was that timid awkwardness that made watching her in this state even more arousing.

"Your breasts are still very firm." Bellatrix announced as she caressed both of Elizabeth's breasts. She grinned slyly at Voldemort and then pinched both of Elizabeth's nipples before blowing on them. While Bellatrix could never satisfy him as anything more than the servant she was, she did know that this display aroused him and pleasing him was her first priority.

"That was unnecessary!" Elizabeth protested, bringing her arms up and crossing them over her bare breasts. Balltrix laughed and pulled Elizabeth's arms away. Elizabeth glared at Voldemort who only shrugged in response.

"The selection of gowns we have for you are made from very light, almost transparent material and your nipples will be erect when you are presented to the Dark Lord on your wedding day. We must see what these fleshy adornments will do to compliment these gowns." Bellatrix mused.

"The gowns are see-through?" Elizabeth asked with some alarm. She looked between both of the older women and then at Voldemort who only grinned at her. Elizabeth sighed and let her arms flop down at her sides in frustration. It was quite obvious that she was not enjoying the dressing session nearly as much as anyone else in the room was.

"Don't worry dear, the fabric will be layered in the area's you will want covered. I wore a similar type of gown to my own wedding." Narcissa assured Elizabeth who still did not look pleased with the news about the nature of her gown.

They went through a variety of dresses, none of which Elizabeth seemed offended or pleased by, in the end when she was in the last gown, she ignored the opinions of the two women and faced him. "Which one would you like me to wear?" She asked.

Voldemort gave it some consideration and decided that the gown with the lowest cut and the longest train was the one he wanted her to wear. He indicated his decision to Narcissa who complimented his choice. The tiara and veil that Elizabeth would be wearing was still being crafted but he could see in his mind's eye what it would look like atop her head and he was very pleased with the overall image.

"Oh I think you will just lovely at your wedding." Narcissa mused as she laid out the selected dress on the nearby bed. "Like a maiden of Dionysus himself!"

"Yes lovely. Provided you heal up after I have my way with you." Bellatrix snarled cruelly in Elizabeth's ear, but loud enough for him to hear it.

"Watch your mouth LeStrange." Elizabeth said as she stepped down from the dressing platform. She looked coolly over her shoulder at Bellatrix. "It may just turn out to be _you_ that will need a veil at _this_ wedding."


	18. Chapter 18: Second to One

Part Eighteen: Second to One

"You look worried." Voldemort said gently as he stood behind Elizabeth. She was dressed in the chosen wedding gown and examining herself in the three-panelled mirror. He placed his hands on her upper arms and ran them down until his her hands were in his. "Brides are supposed to _admire_ themselves in their gowns." He teased as he observed the frown on her face. He gave her hands a reassuring squeeze.

"It feels more like a death shroud." She whispered softly and he suspected that perhaps she hadn't meant to say it out loud.

"Don't let Bellatrix and her snide remarks bother you." He mumbled into the warm crook of her bare neck. She giggled a little and pulled away an inch. He knew she was very ticklish there and he kissed her again.

"Tom!" She cried, smiling. She attempted to move away from him and he held onto her. "That woman is going to kill me!" Elizabeth lamented, though the smile he'd brought to her lips had not left them. "I'm no duellist." She said softly, and the smile faded, her face returning to a frown.

"There are three matches, and you're sure to beat her in at least two of them." Voldemort reassured Elizabeth. He rested his chin on her shoulder and stared at their reflection in the mirrors before them.

"The last match is with Wands. You and I both know she's going to win that, and beyond winning it she's going to kill me when she wins." Elizabeth sighed and Voldemort felt the fragility in the way her chest expanded and collapsed. Unlike him, Elizabeth was completely at the mercy of the afflictions of mortality. "I can't recall ever casting an unforgiveable curse."

"You only need to cast the _cruciatus_ curse successfully to win the match." Voldemort spoke gently as he let go of one of her hands and wrapped his arm around Elizabeth's waist. She still had not recovered from her weight loss during the time she had spent in solitude. "The killing curse is not permitted in the competition."

"And you think the rules will deter _that_ woman from killing me. She wants to be here, where I am, with your arms around her." Elizabeth chewed at her lower lip. She really did seem certain about the prospect of Bellatrix killing her.

"Bellatrix will not do anything that would displease me. Killing you would displease me _immensely_." Voldemort said before kissing her cheek forcefully.

"When a woman is in love, she sometimes comes to think that she knows better than the man she loves about what will please him in the end." Elizabeth spoke as she gazed into the central mirror. She ran the palm of her hand over the back of his that was resting across her waist. "She believes that if I were not present, eventually you would choose her to take the place she believes I have taken from her. Do not think that just because you have failed to reciprocate her affection for you thus far that she understands you have no intention of _ever_ reciprocating."

He thought about what she had said and he decided that perhaps it was true. Bellatrix was his best and she was extremely skilled. She had proven this over the years in her successful defeat of over a dozen extremely powerful wizards and witches. In retrospect, Bellatrix was perhaps only second to him in the use of the dark arts and it was very likely that Bellatrix would injure Elizabeth quite badly. He would make it clear to Bellatrix that she was not to kill Elizabeth and that if she did, he would kill her.

"In open-hand combat I should come out successful." Elizabeth said. She drew herself up to her full height and he held her tightly. "She boasts to others that you taught her what she knows and you did not know what I knew about Eastern Magic, so it's unlikely that she does. In weapons there is a possibility I will lose. In that match both of us are likely to be injured and your Death Eaters and their families will be _very entertained_." She spoke the last with a great deal of sarcasm but he did not let it anger him. "Because - really - who doesn't like watching two women beat the resolve out of one another?" Elizabeth smiled as she said this and he smiled as well. While Elizabeth did not make it her priority in life to please anyone – even him – she did understand what brought him enjoyment and she was willing to do it at her own discretion.

Voldemort did not doubt that Elizabeth was up for the fight ahead, but perhaps he had been too hasty in his willingness to place Elizabeth in harms-way. He had always believed her to possess a fierce heart beneath her breast, but Bellatrix possessed a merciless one and Bellatrix would greatly enjoy the fight, even if Bellatrix herself was injured. Bellatrix had always been an interesting combination of sadist and masochist and since he had been the one to order and decide upon the terms of the competition she would gladly bare the injuries of the little woman-to-woman war ahead if she suspected it would gain her some favour with him.

"She may be second to me in the use of the Dark Arts. But you must establish yourself as second to me in the hierarchy of power that I have established amongst the Death Eaters and their families. They need to see what you are and what you are capable of, and by proxy why they ought not to dare defy you. They should answer only to me, above you Elizabeth." Voldemort explained as he rocked her gently from side to side.

"I guess we'll just have to see." Elizabeth said. She turned around within his grasp to face him. "Just don't ask me to do this ever again, Tom." She looked up at him with her dark eyes and he could not help but to accept her request.

"I know what I will ask you to do right now." He said as he hoisted her up and carried her over to the bed.

"Tom! You're not supposed to have me in this dress until the night of the wedding!" Elizabeth protested, swatting him playfully. He set her down on the bed and looked down at her as he undid his own robes and let them drop from his form to the floor.

"I just want to try it out and make sure that I made the right choice." He grinned and descended upon her. She did not protest and after their love-making they both agreed it was a good dress and that they would enjoy it no less on their wedding night for having had it before then.


	19. Chapter 19: A Worsening Condition

Part Nineteen: A Worsening Condition

Voldemort did not emerge immediately from the depths of sleep when the gentle but disturbing sounds of illness called upon him to wake. He stirred finally and reached to his right, feeling for the warmth of Elizabeth and while the space was empty, the sheets that she had abandoned were still warm. He opened his eyes and looked from where she should have been to the window where she sometimes sat.

He heard another lurch and a strained intake of breath and his gaze centered on the lavatory. He threw back the covers, scooping his robes off of the floor and shrugging them on as he hurried towards the closed door. He reached out for the handle and found that it was not locked. He opened the door to find Elizabeth still dressed in her wedding gown and sitting on the floor, her head leaned over the bowl of the toilet, her back hunched and her hair stringy with perspiration.

"Elizabeth." He got down on the floor next to her and reached under her chin to lift her face. He wiped away a dribble of vomit from the corner of her pale and cracked lips with his thumb and combed her hair back from her face with his other hand. "You are ill." He observed needlessly.

"I'll be fine." Elizabeth breathed. Her breathing was laboured and when he placed the palm of the hand he'd used to comb back her hair on the side of her neck he could feel the relentlessly quick cadence of her pulse.

She was weak and fell backwards against the tiled wall near the toilet, her head lolling loosely on her neck. He looked into the toilet bowl and saw that amongst the pathetically dilute strings of vomit there were several dark clots of blood. He didn't have to be a Healer to know that emitting blood from the mouth was indicative of an internal injury of some kind.

"The blood isn't from my mouth." She said softly and he faced her. She was sitting with her head against the wall, her eyes closed, and her hands lay limply in her lap. It was then that he saw the small stain of red on the front of her dress, just underneath where her hands lay. He regarded the stain with caution as he moved towards her and lifted her hands. "Sorry I ruined the dress." She said weakly and then coughed.

"I don't recall you ever getting ill when you menstruated in the past." He said as he set her hands aside and lifted the hem of the dress further up her pale thighs. He lifted one of her legs to peer beneath the dress and saw that she had been correct. Smears of both dark and bright-red blood stained her thighs and what was still leaking from her was staining the anterior aspect of the dress and the tiled floor.

She let out a soft wail of pain, clutched her lower belly and lurched towards the toilet again. She pushed him aside with a weak arm and heaved into the toilet. Only a thin thread of saliva and stomach contents came this time, but she continued to dry-heave and her body continued to clench and relax several times before she fell away from the toilet again and drew the back of her hand across her mouth to wipe away the vomit.

"I'm not menstruating." She said and seemed to be trying to breathe more slowly. She clapped the palm of her hand to her forehead and winced, squeezing her legs back together and clutching at her lower abdomen with the other hand.

He didn't speak, only waited for her to gather more strength and explain to him what was going on. She would know, for she was the healer, let alone a woman and women always knew far better about these things than men.

When she finally spoke it hit him as cruelly as blow from a particularly well-delivered stunning spell and he himself felt his body lose its strength.

"I just had a miscarriage." She said plainly. "And I think I know what's wrong with me."

He had not gotten past the miscarriage part but when he looked up at her she was staring at him and he saw that her eyes were blood shot, but beyond that her pupils had narrowed. The dark brown iris of each of her eyes made it difficult to see but when he crawled towards her he could discern what she was referring to; her pupils were becoming slit-like, just like his own. He looked at her hair then and _really_ noticed how much of the colour she had lost.

"I think you're changing me." She breathed. "I think you're the reason I'm losing the colour of my hair. And I think I got pregnant early on, perhaps even the first night we were together again, but I've lost it now that I've changed too much since then." She closed her eyes and breathed deeply.

"You don't know about biology and genetics and things like that because we don't learn about that in the Wizarding community, we're beyond such intricate knowledge of nature. But I do, and I think that it has something to do with this, I can't say how, but you don't possess a human body anymore and I dare say that because of our intimacy, I no longer possess one either, at least technically."

She inhaled deeply and then coughed again. "Are you saying I have _infected_ you with something?" He asked and she immediately shook her head, a weak smile on her face. It was the kind of smile one wore while waiting for a less knowledgeable person to stop talking so that they could correct them, thus he made his question quick.

"It was dark magic that brought you back, and who but you has ploughed so far ahead into the poorly understood extents of such magic than you? How do you know that whatever brought you back as you are, wouldn't have consequences for someone that you would become so..._close to_ afterwards?"

He sat across from her on the floor and was unsure of what to say. What she was saying was true. If he had gotten her pregnant, then he supposed that while they had lost the child it was still beneficial to know he was capable of doing such in his new form. But he did not like to see her suffering, even if she was experiencing some sort of side-effect of having intimate contact with him.

"Am I killing you?" He asked, his voice barely above a whisper. She reached out and he took her hand. It was cold and clammy. She squeezed it as tightly as she seemed to be able to, and that was not much at all. She was shaking her head but he was not convinced.

"I think I'm more in danger of looking like I belong to that Malfoy family that I am of being killed by this process." She said and gave a weak little laugh, shrugging some her hair over her shoulder. He was capable only of a false smile as he ran his thumb over the top of her hand.

"I may get better now that I'm not pregnant. It could have been that which caused my condition as my body would likely not be capable of bringing any child of yours to gestation." She said. She let her hand fall from his and pulled her knees to her chest. She had begun to shiver as the perspiration on her skin had begun to evaporate.

He stood up and then bent down to hoist her up into his arms. He took her back to the bed and undressed her. He cleaned her and ensured that she was not still bleeding before dressing her in a set of his own robes and putting her back to bed. She was very weak and did not protest as he worked on her.

"Does it hurt still?" He asked and she nodded against the pillow her head lay upon. He was indecisive about what to give her until he recalled what had lain on her bedside table while she'd been in solitude. She seemed to drift into a sort of troubled half-sleep as he searched the room for the leather bag where she kept her hospital supplies.

When he found the bag he brought it to the bedside and opened it. Near the top was the vial labelled 'Morphine' and in the front pocket he found a fresh needle and syringe, along with the strip of rubber she had called a tourniquet.

"How do I do this?" He asked softly as he touched her feverish shoulder to wake her. She looked first at him and then at what he was holding. She sighed but then nodded her approval of his selection.

"You won't be able to give me an intravenous injection, Tom. You won't know how. Put the tourniquet back and attach the second longest needle that I have in the bag to the syringe. Throw that one away." She said, nodding towards the short one he had already attached to the syringe.

She managed to throw off her bedcovers and pull up the robes he'd dressed her in to reveal her thigh. "Fill the syringe with the morphine to the first of master tick-marks." He struggled with the filling of the syringe. He had seen muggles do this before and they had always made it look very easy, but he was finding it quite difficult to hold both the up-ended vial and the hypodermic within it _and_ fill the hypodermic when he kept hitting air.

Eventually he'd filled the syringe and depressed the plunger to siphon off the excess medication and any air bubbles. She had told him to flick the bubbles out of it but he found squeezing them out much easier.

"Now, stab me in the thigh, right here." She pressed one pallid finger to a point on the side of her thigh. He did so without hesitation and she winced and then laughed softly. "Perhaps I should not have used the word 'stab'." She said, but before he could ask her what she ought to have used she continued to instruct him. "Pull back on the plunger. If you encounter resistance and draw no blood, then you have hit the muscle." He pulled back and found it was quite difficult. "If you've hit the muscle, then simply depress the plunger at a moderate speed. When you're done, extract it and cover the puncture mark with a bit of gauze or cotton until the bleeding stops." Her speech had become a bit slurred as he injected the medication.

When he was done she was already becoming more relaxed and her state became less fitful. "You will have to watch me. I may stop breathing." She said. He tongue seemed to enunciate her words in a rather sloppy manner similar to that of a drunk.

He brushed her hair off of her forehead and spoke to her, despite his notice that she had already fallen asleep. "I'll be watching you _very_ closely Elizabeth. Do not worry about that."


	20. Chapter 20: Bloody Festivities

Part Twenty: Bloody Festivities

The few months between Elizabeth's miscarriage and the onset of the competition between her and Bellatrix LeStrange had held some complications, but none severe enough to deter Elizabeth from competing for what was now being called the 'most coveted position' that a Death Eater or any other servant of Lord Voldemort could ever hope to hold.

Bellatrix had done both her own and Elizabeth's shares of boasting, for she had been unable to talk of anything else beyond the competition as it approached. Elizabeth had remained silent and hidden from the view of any and all who would be present to observe, save for Voldemort himself and several visits from Severus Snape, whom Elizabeth had agreed to have examine her.

Elizabeth had been very weak following the miscarriage and she had fallen into an almost obsessive study of the Dark Arts that pertained to Voldemort's second coming. She was driven by both anxiety and the academic hunger that had driven her studies in magical healing and muggle medicine.

Snape's visits had been somewhat lengthy and while Voldemort refused to allow Snape to occupy such close quarters with Elizabeth without his supervision, neither of them had objected. Snape himself had seemed exceptionally curious about Elizabeth's condition and the two of them had spoken animatedly about their shared and differing theories regarding it.

Snape had agreed that she was changing as result of her intimacy with Voldemort but he seemed very certain that the lost child had been the root of the most harmful side effects. Snape had gone one to suggest – with some reserve – that should Voldemort and Elizabeth desire to try again for a child after the marriage had taken place, that they should first wait for what he called her 'transformation' to reach its completion. Snape had postulated that once this transformation had occurred she would be a compatible mate for Voldemort in his new state. Elizabeth had asked Snap to procure something called 'Medroxyprogesterone' from a muggle dispensary for her, which he did. She had given herself the injections of the suspension on her own. This liquid medicine, she said, would prevent her from becoming pregnant again.

Voldemort had not expressed his relief that Elizabeth's condition – caused by Voldemort – was not going to end in death, but eventually come to an end. He had not wanted to admit how fearful he had actually been that he would lose her. He had been reluctant to touch her again until both she and Severus had decided that so long as she did not conceive another child, she would prevail in the transformation that was taking place.

Elizabeth had been honest with Snape about what activities between herself and Voldemort could have caused or contributed to her condition and this had conjured something like embarrassment inside Voldemort but he knew that Snape would say nothing to anyone of the conversations that took place and he also knew that Elizabeth was merely behaving as she would expect a patient to behave had she been their physician. To Elizabeth, such matters normally requiring reservation were vital to revealing the cause of any phenomena that needed intervention of some sort.

Snape had suggested that it was Elizabeth's ingestion of Voldemort's blood during their foreplay that had likely initiated the transformation and perhaps even provided her with the ability to sustain the process. To test this theory Snape had suggested a blood transfusion which Voldemort had initially been so enraged by he had ordered Snape to leave. Elizabeth however had used her tactic of logic to talk him into it and after confirming that his blood was free of antigens, though unable to be typed, she had assured him it was safe to proceed, for she possessed blood that was also free of antigens, what she had called 'Type O-negative'. She had said this was important because of something called 'Haemolysis'.

He had not liked how he had felt during these visits, for he know nothing of medical science which was a muggle discipline of knowledge, but was willing to endure the feelings of confusion and frustration when he had had discerned that Elizabeth was _actually_ eager to complete the transformation process so that they could be together without further worry over her physical state.

Snape had conducted the direct transfusion and they had spent several nights together, joined by plastic tubing connected on either end to what Elizabeth had called 'butterfly catheters'. These treatments had not only proved to be safe for her but seemed to have revitalized her. She had quickly lost all of the dark colouring in her hair and subsequently made it a custom to make jokes about being mistaken for one of the Malfoy's.

When the week of the competition had arrived Elizabeth was cheerful. Snape had given her a clean bill of health and they had both agreed that whatever further effects Voldemort would have on her might be, they would be mild in comparison to what had been happening initially.

Elizabeth was in the emptied ballroom performing what looked to Voldemort like a complicated dance, but what she had told him was really a set of movements designed to allow a fighter to practice outside of combat. He enjoyed watching her perform these, particularly when she did the this one with the slender, double-edged sword that was adored with a rather long white tassel fixed to the terminal end of its handle.

They would be leaving for Malfoy manor, where the competition would take place. The Malfoy's had been delighted to host the competition and had ordered the construction of a rock-lined pit on their private grounds where the actual matches would take place. Voldemort had gone to see it once it was announced completed and had genuinely praised Lucius Malfoy for its design. The two women would enter the pit by ladders on either end and a protective field would be cast over the top to protect the on-lookers.

He watched Elizabeth from one of the doorways with his arms crossed over his chest. Her long white hair was tied back in a very attractive horse tail and he liked the way it whipped about her as she moved. He missed the darkness of her hair but the white suited her just as well. He had noted to himself that Elizabeth's new fairness would be aesthetically pleasing when pitted against Ballatrix's darkness. She'd even opted for a form-fitting combat out-fit that was white to match her hair.

The competition was set to take place with the first match on that very evening. The second day would consist of festivities and entertainment that Malfoy had arranged. The weapons match would occur on the third night, followed by another two days of entertainment which, presumably, would give the two women a chance to recover from any wounds or injuries sustained during the first two matches. The wand match – which everyone was most excited to see – would occur on the sixth night, and the seventh night would consist of a concluding ceremony and the wedding ceremony itself, regardless of which woman won.

"Are you ready to go yet, my dear?" He announced his presence loudly and Elizabeth startled. She laughed and pressed a hand to her chest as she turned to face him, the sword held in the other hand.

"I'm as ready as I'll ever be." She said and then jogged across the room to him and took his hand as they headed upstairs for her to change and to collect their things before travelling to the Malfoy's.


	21. Chapter 21: Round One

_A/N: Sorry about the double post before!_

Part Twenty-One: Round One

Voldemort could not help but to commend Malfoy for the impressive arena he had staged for the event. Everyone was present, sitting at dark-iron tables that surrounded the pit where the match would take place. Their tables were lit with soft green lanterns but the pit itself was brightly illuminated by some other means.

Voldemort had been afforded a seat in the center of the western wall of the square pit and the Malfoys sat next to him. Malfoy's son, Draco could hardly contain himself and Voldemort thought that perhaps Lucius had never looked so pleased with himself in all the years he had served Lord Voldemort.

Malfoy stood and addressed the crowd, amplifying his voice with the tip of his wand. "As you all know, we are here to commence the pre-wedding festivities of Our Lord, Voldemort and his Bride, Elizabeth Kappel. The main event will be divided into three separate nights."

Malfoy stood to one side to indicate Voldemort, who only sat quietly and waited for the match to begin. He had left Elizabeth with Snape who would be standing in her corner. Rodolphus LeStrange would be standing at his wife's ladder, serving the same purpose.

"Our Lord desires a personal body guard and these festivities will decide whether that personal protective servant will be Bellatrix LaStrange or the Dark Lord's new bride, Elizabeth Kappel!"

The crowd roared as Bellatrix approached the pit along a path through the gathering at the southern end of the pit that was lined with torches. She sauntered along the path with one confident hand planted on her hip and a devious smile on her face.

She entered the pit and began to speak, for the pit itself, below the protective shield, amplified sound and made her as clear to all of them as if she were standing just near them.

"I'll try not to finish her off too quickly!" Bellatrix shouted, raising her hands to rouse more applause. She pointed towards the guests on the Eastern wall. "Make sure your private bets are set on Bellatrix, for I'm the one that will win you your gold!" She teased loudly and was blasted with applause and laughter.

Bellatrix was dressed in a form-fitting black leotard and corset. She took up a provocative and ostentatious stance as she turned her attention towards the northern wall. Elizabeth was already standing at her ladder, dressed in white with her matching hair pulled into a tight horse tail near the top of her head. Snape was speaking to her but Voldemort was unable to guess from the movements of his lips what he was saying to her.

"C'mon little girl!" Bellatrix said, making a theatrical come-hither motioned in Elizabeth's direction. "Let's soil that snowy-white leotard!" Bellatrix began to cackle and was joined by the crowd.

Elizabeth did not turn her head but her eyes scanned the crowd until they met Voldemort's. It was only a moment's glance but it showed him her true anxiety. Despithe the fact that she surely knew she was the better fight, he saw real fear in her eyes. Snape said something to her and she gave him a curt nod before turning and sliding down the ladder.

"You're slippery for such a tall lank!" Bellatrix teased, bending at the waist as she laughed.

Elizabeth turned around to face her and approached the starting line where she casually responded to Bellatrix. The amplification charm made her words clear for all of them, despite her not speaking above a volume that should have been heard by anyone but her and Bellatrix. "It's called friction, or lack there-of-it; you stupid bitch."

A brief silence took over the crowd before it burst into cheers again. Elizabeth was kicking her feet as if trying to wipe something from her feet but he could see by how she was moving that she was loosening herself up. Bellatrix did not have a verbal response to Elizabeth's previous answer but instead looked around the crowd as if they should all be impressed at the misplaced audacity Elizabeth had had to speak to Bellatrix in such a manner.

Elizabeth became still at her starting line, assuming a stance in which her weight seemed almost wholly placed on her back leg with her knees bent and her hands up. She was as still as stone as she stared ahead at Bellatrix who was sauntering up to her own starting line.

"Begin!" Malfoy announced and the two women went immediately into motion. Bellatrix had short forward as if to close the gap between them but Elizabeth had side-stepped her and was circling Bellatrix, foot crossing over foot with her hands still held up in the same manner. She kept her gaze dead-set on Bellatrix but otherwise seemed un-afflicted by any other expression beyond a sort of intense watchfulness.

Bellatrix kept herself in line with a Elizabeth who had completed almost a full circle around the older, twitchier woman when Bellatrix shot forward to strike with a fist. She sealed the gap quickly but Elizabeth ducked as she too shot forward, avoiding Bellatrix's fist and coming up under Bellatrix's extended arm, wrapping her closest leg around Bellatrix's and wrapping her arms akwardky around the dark woman's small waist.

She hoisted Bellatrix up over her shoulder like a thin sack of grain and turned beneath Bellatrix's body as Elizabeth threw Bellatrix over her shoulder and slammed the small woman into the ground where the concrete itself cracked beneath Bella's petite form.

Elizabeth backed up to regain distance as Bellatrix arched her back in pain and rolled onto her side. She pointed one long-nailed finger accusatively at Elizabeth and shrieked. "She's got a wand!"

The crowed seemed to agree, for they had seen the ground break beneath Bellatrix and they all knew that neither woman had the strength to throw the other with such force. Voldemort only smiled, noting that as Elizabeth had done her circle of Bellatrix she had replaced herself to the quarter where her back was to the north, and thus he believed he had just seen what the power of the Earth element could do.

Elizabeth looked up at Voldemort as the crowd began to mirror Bellatrix's upset in their misplaced belief that Elizabeth was apparently guilty of cheating. She extended her arm and pointed to Snape who was holding a slender, fair-wooded wand between his hands. He held it up and proclaimed loudly that the wand he held was Elizabeth's. Snape then pointed across the pit to Rodolphus who followed suit and held up the wand that Bellatrix had surrendered.

"You're cheating. You can't even defeat me without magic! That little incident before was just a mishap, I knew it!" Bellatrix spat as she stood up and thumped herself in the chest.. The crowd was still negatively aroused but began to quiet as the stunned Bellatrix stood and faced Elizabeth. "Your nothing by a sneaky, fast-talking, trickster!" Bellatrix shrieked at Elizabeth.

"Unless Snape is holding a fake and my wand hass been hidden cleverly in one of my inhumanly long and accommodating orifices I did know I possessed...I have _no wand_." Elizabeth said as she turned in a circle with arms up to reveal that no wand-like shape of any kind could be seen tucked into any part of her white leotard.

Bellatrix screamed and launched herself at Elizabeth who side-stepped her again and placed her hands on Bellatrix's back as she shot past Elizabeth directing Ballatrix's face-on into the wall behind her.

Bellatrix managed to take the brunt of the collision on her right shoulder and turned with her back against the wall to face Elizabeth who was standing casually several feet away, her hands at her side.

"You think your really clever, don't you?" Bellatrix spat. Elizabeth said nothing, only retained her keen observatory gaze upon her enemy.

Bellatrix raised her fists and took another run toward Elizabeth, whom Voldemort had noticed had taken up her position with her back to the eastern wall. Elizabeth dropped and thrust out her arms as if she were a bird who had just landed. She pushed off her back leg, just as she had when she had first shown the powers of Wind to him in the ballroom and thrust forth a wave of harsh wind that hit Bellatrix like a wall just as Bellatrix came within reaching distance of Elizabeth. The gust carried her back to the opposite wall she had just pushed off. Elizabeth resumed a casual stance and waited.

"This is not fair! You possess magic that requires no wand!" Bellatrix shouted, as she stumbled toward Elizabeth.

"Stop bitching and hit me already." Elizabeth said, and since she was directly across from where sat he saw the corner of her mouth rise in a vicious and taunting grin.

Bellatrix marched towards Elizabeth and to Voldemort's surprise and that of the crowd, encountered no resistance when she walked directly up to Elizabeth and punched her in the side of the face.

Voldemort had seen Ballatrix's fist connect with Elizabeth's face but he also saw that she had twisted as she'd fallen, letting the direction of Bellatrix's right hook spin her in a one'eighty. She hit the ground and scuttled backwards between Bellatrix's widely'spread legs and popped up behind her, slipping one white-clad arm over Bellatrix's shoulder, under her chin and around her neck.

Elizabeth jerked Bellatrix against her as she choked the women who clawed desperately Elizabeth's arm that was clamped firmly around her neck. Even though Elizabeth's back was to Voldemort he could see the freely flowing blood from where Elizabeth had taken the punch spattering the concrete floor she was dragging Bellatrix across.

Bellatrix was choking but Elizabeth said nothing. She only held on as tightly a she could, pressing her head into Bellatrix's until finally Bellatrix's attempts to get out of the choke hold became weakened, at which point Elizabeth thrust the base of one foot into the back of one of Bella's knee's causing them both to kneel on the ground.

Bellatrix was still flailing when Elizabeth winced as she used the remainder of her strength to squeeze Bellatrix's neck as hard as she could. She then abruptly released the woman and stumbled backwards and up to her feet as Bellatrix crumpled to the ground, unconscious.

The crowd was silent as they peered over the edge of the pit. Voldemort wondered what they were more astonished by; Bellatrix losing to the unknown Elizabeth, the skill with which Elizabeth had fought, or - and he guessed this was most true - the strange wandless magic Elizabeth had used while in the fight.

"Match one..." Malfoy's announcement was flat, for he too seemed physically slapped by what he'd witnessed and surprise had just barely spared him his voice. "...goes to Elizabeth Kappel."

Elizabeth turned to face Malfoy and then Voldemort. She held before herself one flat palm and the other above it at a ninety degree angle and bowed, eyeing him exclusively. Blood was running out of her nose, over her chin, and had already stained the vast expanse of her leotard. Voldemort was quite sure that while Elizabeth had not seriously injured Balltrix, that she herself had sustained at least a broken nose.

She turned then to face the crowd with defiant eyes, gazing at each wall of spectators in turn as she wriggled her lips awkwardly and then spat out a thick clot of saliva and blood, which hit the floor with an audible _thwack_. She wiped her inner forearm across her mouth and headed silently for the ladder. When she had ascended Snape led her away quickly.

A reluctant applause began as Rodolphus dropped into the pit to tend to his fallen wife. As the applause began to grow and turn into genuine cheers of wonder and pleasure, Lucius Malfoy turned to face Voldemort who was clapping casually.

"Don't even bother to ask Lucius." Voldemort said without facing Malfoy. "Just trust now that I've brought the right woman into our fold." He said and began to laugh as the cheering grew in its intensity.


	22. Chapter 22: Trust

Part Twenty-Two: Trust

"I don't hate her. I don't feel either way about her!" Elizabeth protested. She looked up at Voldemort from where she was sitting on the edge of the bed, holding a cloth to her bleeding nose. "This is all for you and what you want to establish amongst your followers. You want to give them some sort of bread-and-circus hook-line-and-sinker type thing and I'm just playing the part you expect me to. I hit her in the beginning to put her in a place beneath me, and I'm here doing it again, reinforcing that, because winning and hurting and doing all of the things that this little competition entails is what _they_ believe in."

Snape arrived at the bedside with a glass of clear, fizzing fluid. He helped Elizabeth sip from the glass as she held the rag to her nose. But she wasn't done saying her piece and both Voldemort and Snape seemed keen to let her finish.

"It's a fortunate thing that this fiasco isn't meant to be fair!"She said and jerked a thumb over her shoulder towards the room's exit. "Because _that _wasn't fair. You and I both know that she could not have been prepared for what I chose to use to my advantage and that her vicious drive is exactly what would get her beat in the end!" She jabbed an accusative finger in Voldemort's direction before consenting to drink more of the fluid Snape had brought her.

"Elizabeth. You cannot appear weak or fragile _at all_ to these people, for they compete _amongst themselves_ and Bellatrix of all of them competes with the most fervour. You establish yourself above her and the rest will fall in line." Voldemort explained sternly.

"What? Your word, your _command_, is not enough?" She scoffed at this and Voldemort felt the urge to strike her forcefully across the face, broken nose or not.

"Not with _them_." Snape spoke softly and looked between Voldemort and Elizabeth as they both rounded on Snape. Snape looked up at Elizabeth and set the glass down on the floor between her feet. "Trust the guidance of the Dark Lord in this matter. The Dark Lord knows his men and he knows what will be effective with them. Have faith in the Dark Lord." Snape's words seemed to have quelled Elizabeth's distress and her shoulders slumped.

"I am not saying that I won't finish. I just, think that it would really be better if _she did win_." She removed the rag from her nose and ran the back of one finger under her nose. The bleeding seemed to have stopped. "I only beat her by being tricky. She was right when she called me a trickster." She looked up at Voldemort and he thought he saw some resignation in her eyes.

"You don't have to win, Elizabeth." Voldemort said as he moved to kneel before her. Snape stood up without needing to be told and moved away. Elizabeth pressed the palm of her hand to her forehead and sighed. "You just have to show them, all of them, that you can hold your own and that you _belong_ here." She scoffed at this as well and he reached forward to remove her hand from her face. She looked at him with eyes that were somewhat watery either from the pain of her injuries or the matter that they were discussing.

"But don't you see?" Elizabeth pleaded. "She can't lose face in front of them anymore than I can afford not to gain one." Voldemort regarded her quizzically for a few moments and found himself yet again taken aback at how disgustingly considerate Elizabeth was. He could see that she wasn't being considerate in the sense that she cared about Bellatrix and any consequences that would come to her, but that she was considerate of the circumstances overall, and the long term results that could occur should any particular avenue be taken and any variable un-omitted for evaluation.

"Bellatrix is your best, my Lord." Snape said from where he stood. Elizabeth gestured towards Snape as if to point out that he was validating her own concerns. "It may be unwise for Bellatrix to fail in this venture."

Elizabeth set down the bloodied rag and took Voldemort's hands in her own. She looked down at them and seemed to contemplate them before speaking. She looked into his eyes and spoke with such earnest conviction that he no longer felt angry with her for her early belligerence.

"I will do whatever you wish of me." She began, squeezing his hands. "But I plead with you to think less of my welfare and stay the course of your cause. _You need her_ and you need them to respect her if you are to be successful this time. And you know that I cannot be your right flank in eliminating Harry Potter, because I won't do it."

Elizabeth rarely spoke with Voldemort about his ventures and especially about Harry Potter. She was in love with him, not his cause. He had always known this and while it often enraged him that she would not commit herself to his cause, if only even to please him, he was bound by the thwarting effects of the respect he held for Elizabeth and her own beliefs.

"You don't kill people." Voldemort said, looking down at the entanglement of their hands. "Because you are a..._Doctor_." He did not like the muggle term and it was a bitter word to say, but he knew it was the one she defined herself by.

"I've walked enough halls of hospitals and entered enough homes with Death at my heels and it is _he_ who chooses to take life, not I, and my best efforts to save lives have shown me that his will is not to be delivered by me, nor could I ever thwart his efforts without his decision to allow me to do so." She inhaled deeply and spared Snape a glance before continuing. "It is these ethics, not my station, to which I am accountable."

Voldemort was silent for several long minutes, choosing his words carefully and making sure he really did wish to say them. She had said she would do as he wished and he knew that she would, and because of this he chose to relinquish control over what she would do with Bellatrix during the competition. "I wish for you, to do what you believe is necessary in this competition." He did not look her in the eyes as he said this and when he was finished he released himself from her grasp and stood up.

"I'm going to lose the next round." She said decisively, her eyes following him as he rose. He looked down at her and then at Snape.

"You will do whatever she wishes of you in preparation for this failure." Voldemort commanded sternly and swept past Snape, waving away the dark man's agreement as he left the room.

Elizabeth was very astute as was Bellatrix and Bellatrix had been all too accurate in judging Elizabeth to be a trickster. Elizabeth was smart, intelligent, and wise beyond her years, but she was also clever. Voldemort had to confess himself uncomfortable with placing trust in her to do what was best for the overall cause, but if there was any _one thing_ that he could say had drawn him to her and no other, it was her clever ability to weave webs that always worked out in her favour in the end. Now he would have to trust that what worked in her favour, would also be in his.


	23. Chapter 23: Round Two

Part Twenty Three: Round Two

Voldemort had not been back to visit Elizabeth since the night of the first round, he had decided to leave her exclusively in Snape's care, though he resolved to visit her after the match this night. He had believed her when she had said that she would lose the second match, and he had come to suppose that he had not been back to see her because he felt uncomfortable when he considered _how_ she would lose the match. Whatever she had up her sleeve he had come to no predictable outcome that he found acceptable. He thought briefly that perhaps she would forfeit, but with the way she had spoken about Bellatrix and the need for Bellatrix to save face, he believed that Elizabeth would do no such thing.

He had been to visit Bellatrix and had been kind to her when she had pleaded for his forgiveness for having lost the first match. He had assured Bellatrix that she was no less in his eyes for having lost to his Bride and had manipulated her into thinking that he had pitted Elizabeth against her because other than himself, he saw no other as an equal match for her formidable skills. She had brightened when he had worded this as he had, for she had taken it to mean that he had expected her to lose and therefore she was at no fault for doing so.

Bellatrix, Rodolphus and everyone else who had witnessed the match had been eager for explanation about what they had seen. How had Elizabeth come by this magic that none of them had seen? Did he, Lord Voldemort, know this magic? He had even been asked if Elizabeth was really human and not some sort of half-breed or entirely other creature with skills beyond their own.

"It is my hope Bellatrix, that when these festivities are over, you will learn the same skills that Elizabeth is master of, and that you will become even more powerful than you already are. You are the better witch and Lord Voldemort desired for you to experience the magic he wishes to teach you after this is all over." He had said to Bellatrix when they had been alone.

As he had said these things they had become truth, and he had decided that he wanted all of his inner circle to become adept in what Elizabeth called 'Eastern Magic'. He himself had said that he was already master of these techniques, despite him being only little more than novice, for he had not yet asked Elizabeth to teach him. He had, however, experimented on his own.

He supposed, that perhaps by going to Bellatrix during the intermission that he would be helping to bring Elizabeth's plan of action to fruition, for he had resolved that she was determined to have Bellatrix come out unquestionably the better of the two. He did not want Bellatrix to enter the pit again lacking any gusto, for he did not know what Elizabeth planned to do, and because of that he wanted Bellatrix at her best to fight in case Elizabeth came at her full force. Elizabeth had seemed to think it was paramount that Bellatrix not be humiliated again, and thus he made it his desire as well.

He had blessed Bellatrix with an innocent kiss on her forehead before leaving her quarters and he knew that this small bit of affection would be the fire to the fuel he hoped he had provided her with to win the match.

When the two women entered this pit again, the crowd was much more subdued in comparison to their boisterousness of the previous fight but still adequately afflicted with enthusiasm.

Both women entered silently and selected a weapon off of either of the walls before taking their starting lines. There was much anticipation and anxiety about this match because the likelihood of one or both of them being mortally injured was very real now that weapons had been added to the fray. The winner would be determined by the one who either injured the other beyond the ability to continue, or knocked the other unconscious.

Elizabeth had selected a wooden staff from one of the walls, while Bellatrix had selected two long knives. He already thought that he could see Elizabeth's plan begin to reveal itself simply by her choice of weapon. He knew she was extremely adept with the long sword and there were four of them available, and she had not selected them. He believed she was going to play the defensive end and that she did not intend to risk _winning_ the match by accidentally injuring Bellatrix to the point that Bellatrix could not continue.

He wanted very much to summon Snape to his side to tell him what he and Elizabeth had planned, but he resisted, for Snape was needed in Elizabeth's corner. He had seen them converse briefly before Elizabeth had entered the pit and even seen Snape place a hand on her shoulder, perhaps to reassure her or to wish her luck, Voldemort could not be certain.

Both women were silent as they stood opposite one another, for this time there were no snide remarks nor was there boasting of any kind. Both women had entered with separate intentions and separate expectations. When Malfoy called the commencement of the match neither shot forward and both took up defensive stances.

Bellatrix began the circling and Elizabeth followed suit, she held the staff with both hands along the angle of her body and moved as steadily as she had in the first match. Bellatrix seemed to have learned from her previous encounter with Elizabeth that a full-throttle attack was not the ideal way to engage Elizabeth and instead circled her, feinting occasionally as if she were to strike. Elizabeth responded to the feints as if she expected them to be of true intention, but did not move in to commence the brawl.

The crowd grew impatient and when Bellatrix next made to feint, Elizabeth moved in, closing the gap between herself and Bellatrix in only two steps and attacking not with the staff, but with a kick that hooked the hand Bellatrix had lead with and knocked the knife from it. Elizabeth then snapped the leading end of the staff toward Bellatrix's head and Bellatrix ducked. In only an instant this had taken place and the women had switched places and returned to facing one another.

Bellatrix shifted her remaining knife from hand to hand as they resumed circling one another. The next attack was initiated by Bellatrix and it was not a feint, for she had spun as if to move in, Elizabeth reacting accordingly, but Bellatrix had flung the knife she held.

There was a collective intake of breath as the spinning knife soared at Elizabeth, who bent backwards to dodge it, but not far enough that the blade did not knick her upper abdomen, slicing through her leotard and shedding the first blood of the match.

Elizabeth had not seemed fazed by the injury, though it bled rather copiously and she did clap one hand over it before examining her palm. In the time that Elizabeth had done this Bellatrix had grabbed two of the long swords – the ones Voldemort had expected Elizabeth to select – off the nearest wall and to his dreadful surprise, began to wield the two blades with skill, skill he had never known Bellatrix had possessed.

She threw herself eagerly towards Elizabeth, moving in circles as she spun the blades and judging by Elizabeth's instance of non response, Voldemort thought that perhaps Elizabeth had not expected Bellatrix to pick up what would have been Elizabeth's weapons of choice either, let alone come at her with them in a way that suggested she at least knew what she was doing with them.

Bellatrix drove Elizabeth backwards as she slashed and hacked, each blow was deflected skilfully by Elizabeth with her staff. The exertion of each woman was amplified and he could hear the thrill in Bellatrix's throat and something less than confidence in Elizabeth's as she fought to keep Bellatrix and her blades away from her.

Bellatrix cried out as she made a momentous thrusting movement at Elizabeth's abdomen. Elizabeth jumped as if she meant to do a cartwheel but did so without using her hands and landed just left of Bellatrix, whom Elizabeth struck forcefully across the lower back with her staff. Voldemort had seen Elizabeth move as if she were an acrobat before, and her aerial cartwheel was rewarded with much applause from the watching audience.

Bellatrix buckled from the blow, but did not fall. Elizabeth stepped in behind Bellatrix and brought the staff over Bellatrix's head, hooking her neck and pulling the woman backwards. Bellatrix had called Elizabeth a trickster, and Voldemort thought that Elizabeth's penchant for attacking from behind was just another testament to that accurate description of his bride.

It seemed for a moment that Elizabeth would win after all, having succeeded in choking Bellatrix out of the first match and doing the same again, but Bellatrix had been better prepared for her fight with Elizabeth this time and thrust herself backwards into Elizabeth's hold which caused both women to stumble several feet back. As she did this she reached behind Elizabeth with her swords, and drew both blades upwards across the backs of Elizabeth's thighs.

Elizabeth screamed and let go of one end of the staff, releasing Bellatrix as her legs failed her and she fell backwards, taking Bellatrix with her, who had put all of her meagre weight into throwing Elizabeth off balance.

Elizabeth's scream was shrill and Bellatrix's cry of triumph could not drown out the painful wail of agony. Malfoy looked ready to call an end to the match but Elizabeth had tried to scrabble out from underneath Bellatrix unsuccessfully. Bellatrix flipped over and straddled Elizabeth who had finally dropped the staff and was now weapon-less. Bellatrix threw away one of the swords and raised the other with both hand wrapped firmly around the handle and with the tip aimed at Elizabeth's chest.

Even Voldemort rose with the crowd at this, but before Bellatrix could thrust the sword into Elizabeth's heart Elizabeth had bucked her hips upwards throwing Bellatrix off balance as the sword came down and her body was buffeted past Elizabeth's head.

Bellatrix had missed and landed awkwardly on her knees with the sword striking only the concrete floor. Elizabeth had rolled out from under her and gotten to her feet. At first Voldemort thought Elizabeth had escaped unscathed but there was a gash along her left temple where the sword must have caught her before she could escape its trajectory completely.

Elizabeth wiped blood out of her left eye where the gash was near and hurried towards the nearest wall where she snatched a spear off one of the hooks and moved quickly away, holding forth the spear with both hands. He could see she was favouring her left leg and guessed that the gash there had been deeper than the other.

Elizabeth did not wait for Bellatrix to get up and recover herself, instead she ran at her, screaming as if running headlong into a war, spinning the spear on either side of her body and then spinning her body itself and letting go of the end-length of the spear which allowed it to swing at Bellatrix like a deadly sort of pendulum which did in fact make contact, slashing Bellatrix across the breasts and causing Bellatrix to bleed, finally.

Bellatrix was no more stopped by her own injury than Elizabeth was by hers and she slashed at Elizabeth who dodged the swipe of the blade by bending backwards at an angle that made her look as if she had been impaled at the base of her spine. She snapped back up and struck Bellatrix across the face with the butt-end of the spear and then spun, bringing up her hind leg and delivering a well-planted side-kick to Bellatrix's chest that threw Bellatrix backwards and to the ground..

Bellatrix scrabbled backwards as Elizabeth jumped, bringing the spear down head-first and there were cries from the observers as the spear came down and Bellatrix thrust her sword upwards and there was blood and a spine-wrenching scream.

"The match is over!" Lucius cried quickly but neither woman moved and it was unclear who had been injured. For Voldemort it seemed to occur in slow motion. He saw Snape drop into the pit, as had Rodolphus and he saw the two women locked awkwardly together. As Snape came to Elizabeth he took her shoulders and she stumbled flaccidly backwards, the spear falling limply from her hands. Ballatrix's sword had gone clean through Elizabeth's left shoulder and stuck out of her obscenely as she fell into Snape's supportive grip.

Snape stopped her from hitting ground but took hold of the sword's handle and wrenched it from Elizabeth who screamed again. This time her scream was so loud and shrill that it silenced everyone. An arc of blood flew into the air and spattered the ground as Snape removed the blade and let it drop to the ground, cradling Elizabeth in one arm as he gently laid her on the ground.

Murmurs began amongst the crowd as Elizabeth continued the scream and Snape pressed the palm of his hand into her wound. A bloody tattoo began to spread beneath her from the exit wound and when she twitched, her other wounds further soiled the concrete.

Bellatrix had stood up and was regarding Elizabeth with wide-eyed shock. She looked up towards Voldemort as he looked down at her and he thought he saw panic on her face. He had encouraged Bellatrix to win, but perhaps now she thought she had gone too far and would suffer his wrath. He felt rage arise within him but it was not for Bellatrix, it was for Elizabeth.

This had been her plan? To not only lose, but to sustain such grievous injuries? She had practically launched herself upon Bellatrix's sword and what if it had not been her shoulder, it could have pierced anything else!

As Lucius announced that Bellatrix had won, Snape took hold of Elizabeth's hand and they both dissapparated out of the pit. Bellatrix was given much cheer and applause but she still seemed shocked from her success.

Voldemort left then. He would find Elizabeth and Snape and see how badly they had ruined everything. And just because Elizabeth was his bride, she would be no less protected from his wrath when he found her.


	24. Chapter 24: The Dark Lord's Wrath

Part Twenty Four: The Dark Lord's Wrath

When Voldemort burst into the bedroom where Snape had taken Elizabeth he saw that Snape was holding a syringe and leaning over Elizabeth who had the rubber tourniquet tied tightly around her right upper arm. Voldemort thrust forth his wand and the syringe flew from Snape's hand, clattering to the floor several feet away.

"Get out!" He shouted at Snape as he headed towards the bed where Elizabeth lay. She sat up on her uninjured arm, pulling the tourniquet free with her teeth as he approached and Snape fled from the room. The length of flat rubber landed on the bed next to her.

"What did you think you were doing?" He shouted, enraged with her as he marched towards her. She held up the hand of the arm she was leaning on as best she could to halt him. 

"_Tom!_" She growled firmly. "_Stop right there_." She fixed him with a steady and a gaze completely devoid of fear. "You're mad, and I can guess why, but – "

He cut her off. "- _then guess_, my _dear_, I implore you to venture at the root of my anger with you right now!" He spat.

"Actually, I think you should get the yelling out of your system before I even attempt to do so." She said, her tone more indignant than it had ever been.

"Do not speak to me in that tone!" He commanded and without consciously thinking about it he shot off a spell from his wand that hit an ornamental vase on one of the bookshelves, shattering it.

"Do we need to reuptake the _old rules_ and have you leave your wand at the door when you come to me?" She shouted angrily and sat up fully. Her left arm hung limply at her side but he could see that that wound had been dressed and her shoulder joint fixed in place by the bandages extended around her upper torso.

He raised his wand, intending to point it at her, but stopped himself with great effort and threw it hatefully away. The wand hit the floor and skipped across the wooden floorboards before coming to rest at the base of a bare section of wall.

"When you explain yourself to me, do not even _attempt_ to expect me to believe that what just happened out there went according to whatever plan and you and that louse Severus schemed up on your own. I should never have left him to oversee you." He growled the last as he approached her, holding up a rigid finger and speaking through clenched teeth.

"Your arrogance and idiocy got you impaled!" He shouted fiercely. "To me it looked as if you had even _thrown_ yourself willingly upon it!" The pitch of his voice had raisen as he held out his arms as if speaking to her before a jury.

"_I did_!" She snapped viciously before he could continue. He opened his mouth but shut it again, letting his arms lower. She stared at him with her now rusty brown eyes, her chest heaving and blood still seeping from the un-mended wound at her left temple. She blinked away blood as they stared at each other, locked in a silent stale-mate.

"You _what_?" He hissed, his jaw clenched tight enough that he risked cracking a tooth.

"It was _exactly_ what it _looked_ like!" She said, sitting further up. "Though I doubt anyone caught it but _you_!"

"Well I guess myself and Snape were the only one's _keen enough_ to see what you did." He purred sarcastically. "Though _he knew_ what you were going to do, didn't he?" His voice returned to a commanding shout and she shut her eyes against his bellow as if she had been hit by a strong gust of wind.

"But of course he knew." Voldemort said, gesticulating with his hands as if he were conversing with himself. "Why else was he so quick to come to your aid and so calm in doing so?" He gave her a mock expression of sympathetic adoration for Snape's actions. "He knew _exactly_ what to do, didn't he? And that's why he dissapparated with you while everyone else was left completely in shock!"

He rounded on her and extended his arm, pointing an accusative finger at Elizabeth. "And that is why _he touched you_ before you got into the pit!" He screamed this at her and she winced as if he had physically hit her.

He lowered his arm and ran his hands over his bald skull, frustrated and angry and conflicted all at once. He wanted to beat her with his bare hands for her stupidity and yet at the same time he was torn by his relief upon finding her alive and lucid.

"Tom." She said softly and he looked at her, his chest heaving in exasperation. "Tom, please." She was not quite pleading with him, but she did not look as if she were taking the defensive anymore either. She even looked as if she were a little ashamed of herself, and rightly so.

"Tom. _There was no concrete plan_, for one simply cannot plan such a thing down to the most minute detail. But _it did_ go according to the plan I had." She spoke gently and he felt some of the hottest of his rage cool at the sound of her tender, soothing voice.

"I intended to lose, and I intended to do so after sustaining at least a couple of non-lethal wounds, for I needed to come out of the fight more injured than Bellatrix." Elizabeth said. She pursed her lips as if she knew this was not an excuse he would accept.

"There were _two ways_ for you to lose." He hissed, creeping further towards her and holding up two fingers splayed wide apart. "You ought to have let her knock you out or have faked it!" He was shouting again, though not as loudly as he had before.

"You are agile and cunning enough that you could have intercepted a blow from her with your head, and then if you had fallen _no one_ would have questioned whether or not you had fallen on purpose or had actually been knocked out. Instead of a headache and a little acting, you decided to launch yourself onto a sword that went _clean through you _and came out lucky enough to even have an arm left!"

"Well I am right-handed." She said plainly and it took him several seconds to catch on to what she had just alluded to. She had injured her left arm, not her right. Her humour was quick and avoided the grasp of most people, but he caught it. He stab at humour had, however, diffused the trip-wire in his rage with her.

"Now is not the time for jokes, Elizabeth." He sighed and pressed his fingers to his forehead.

"I'm sorry." She said and her tone was earnest. "She never picked up a weapon that I could have run into, nor did she come at me in a way in which I could have done exactly what you said. You are right, Tom. What you said was what I hoped for, but the opportunity did not present itself to me."

He looked at her then and fully took in her wounds. He could see that Snape had already mended all of them save for her temple and her shoulder which seemed too severe for simple mending.

"Look at you." He said weakly. He went to the bed then and sat down on the side next to hers. He reached for her good hand and she let him take it. He stroked it for several moments as if it were a favoured pet. "You could have landed with that sword through your heart." He said.

She moved closer to him and bent down to look up at him since his gaze was directed down at her hand. He looked at her and followed her as she sat up. She took her hand out of his and reached towards him to touch his cheek as she had the night he had come to find her again. She smiled at him and all at once he was in love with her all over again and wanted to take her to bed.

"It was _you_ who just attested to how agile I am." She said and her smile brightened. He felt the corners of his own mouth rise but without much spirit in them. "I used the spear to fall that way, that's why it landed so far from Bellatrix's face." He had not seen that but he nodded numbly. He had not been paying attention to where her weapon had struck.

"How bad is your injury?" He asked, jerking his chin towards her shoulder. Blood had already soaked through the dressing and bandages and he did not like the way her left arm hung so limply. Not even a finger on that hand had moved since he'd found her.

She took her hand away from his face and looked at the wound. "Even I am not agile enough to have gotten as lucky as I did. The blade went almost cleanly through tissue and muscle alone, it passed right between the clavicle bone and the scapula." She traced her finger over her collar bone and then pointed towards her back to indicate the bones she was speaking about. "The strike severed the coracoid ligaments. The blade went in at a bit of angle and she did catch the underside of my clavicle, it _is_ broken but it will heal easily with skelegrow. The blade seems to have severed some major blood vessels, but the nerve appears to have been spared. Severus repaired those immediately and while I did lose a fair amount of blood, I did not develop hypovolemic shock" She said. He did not always understand the intricacies when she spoke in such technicalities but it was her way and he thought perhaps in situations like this it was better he did not understand all of what she said. They both looked down at her left hand. She twitched her fingers and winced in pain. "See, it still works. And the skin is still pink and warm. Blood flow is fine." She said reassuringly.

"So this injury is not as severe as it looks?" He asked tentatively, wishing he had her mind's eye and could see the anatomy hidden beneath her bandages for she was speaking of landmarks he knew nothing of.

"If I was a muggle and I had not had Severus' help, this wound had the potential to have been mortal." She said seriously. "The plan was mine, but I prepared Severus to respond according should I have to take an injury that was not delivered by blunt force. He knows far more about the paradigms that I do than I would ever have thought." She was praising Severus and while Voldemort could still feel that he was furious with Snape for having allowed Elizabeth to go through with her ridiculously risky plan, he felt some of his rage abate.

"He saved your life, then?" Voldemort asked as he reached out and cupped her warm cheek with the palm of his hand. She nuzzled into it a moment before turning her face and kissing his palm forcefully.

"Yes he did. When I took that jump, I was expecting to land in a way that the sword would become lodged in my scapula and spare the blood vessels and connective tissue, but it turns out I got luckier than I dared to bet on." She was blushing as she said this. "Even I'm not this precise." She said, nodding approvingly at her bandaged shoulder.

"Everyone was shocked." Voldemort said, taking his hand away from her face and picking up her good one again. "Though I don't think anyone was more shocked than Bellatrix. She just... _stared_ at you and Snape, she didn't even become excited when Lucius announced that she had won." He explained softly, holding her hand firmly in his lap. Her hand was warm and he could feel that it was strong.

Elizabeth started to laugh as if in relief. He looked at her, puzzled. Had she done all this just to stun Bellatrix into silence? If so, she was even more bull-headed than he had initially mistaken her for.

"Then it worked." Elizabeth said finally and she exhaled a long breath. She saw his face and tried to stop laughing, but seemed unable. "That's all I wanted, was for her to beat me, for I saw it in her face when we took our places that she was _far_ from sure she could do it."

"And now that she has?" He asked. He wanted to embrace her while they talked, but he knew that her wounds were too deep for such aggressive contact. If he had not fully realized before how dear she was to him, he had certainly realized it when he'd seen Snape pull her off of Bellatrix and seen the sword stuck straight _through her_ like she were no more than a pig skewered at slaughter.

"Now that she has, I think the score has been evened. Not the whole score of course, for she will still resent me for being your wife, but she bested me in a manner of combat that I should have won and so long as she never knows that I could have won and that I did purposely handicap myself to her, she should regard herself as equal to me."

Voldemort smiled and shook his head. "I don't think she will see you as equal." He said. "She, like everyone else, expects to win the last match and always did. Now that she has beaten you tonight, she believes she will win over all." He explained.

Elizabeth nodded but he could see that she did not quite agree with him. "That may be so. But I scared her in that first match. I _know_ that I did. None of you were eye-to-eye with her, but _I_ was, and I saw _fear_ under her rage. She won't be afraid of me now, and while you may be right that the results of tonight will bolster her belief that she will win the last match, what is _important_ is that _something_ happened that she did not _expect_, therefore even if it is hidden deep within her, she will be unsure now of whether or not she will beat me again."

Voldemort admired Elizabeth's face as she spoke. She had an uncanny way of understanding people, understanding individuals to be more precise, and she knew how to manipulate them. She had crafted the web he had hoped for after all and he felt a brief pang of shame for having doubted her.

"Will you lose the last match?" He asked her and she smiled at him. "Let's just say that I intend to be as un-expectable as I have been thus far." She kissed him then and he pulled her head to his, he could taste her blood in her mouth and the coppery taste filled him with relief. She was bleeding and that meant she was alive and the taste of her life aroused him.

He gave her the morphine he had stopped Snape from giving her when he had entered and then taken her to bed. He made love to her gently and any of her blood that still seeped, he devoured greedily. To taste that she was alive was delicious.


	25. Chapter 25: The Final Round

Part Twenty Five: The Final Round

Elizabeth had healed up very well in the two days rest time between the second and final match between her and Bellatrix. Her left arm was still sore and she had told Voldemort that she was very glad it had been her left she'd landed on, since it wasn't nearly as spry as she would have liked if she were about to engage in any other type of combat save for that of the wand, for Elizabeth was right-handed.

"I would really like it if you would tell me what it is that you plan to do." Voldemort had asked her the morning of the final match as Elizabeth was dressing him. She seemed to enjoy dressing him as much as he enjoyed her doing so. For something so simple he found it remarkably intimate.

She shrugged as she straightened his collar. "Jump around, I guess." She said and they both laughed. "I guess I'll try firing off a few spells while I'm at it." She added.

"Fine, don't tell me. But if it is anywhere near as dangerous as what you pulled last time I will be very angry with you." She laughed but he stopped her and took her chin his hand. She looked up at him and he tried to gaze at her with as much sincerity as he could, for he was not jesting about the anger he would experience if she endangered herself the way she had in the second match yet again in the final one.

Her face softened and she placed her hands on his chest. "The criteria for winning this round is merely to successfully hit the other with the _cruciatus_ curse." His expression of seriousness did not falter and she expanded on her statement. "When she hits me it will just hurt a lot. And besides, you've already prepared me for what that will be like." Her face darkened a little at this.

She had asked him to cast the _cruciatus_ curse upon her before they'd left for the competition so that she would know what to expect when it hit her. He had not liked doing it and knew that he had not delivered it with the full force of which he was capable of doing, despite her having asked him to do so.

"_Relax_, Tom. There is no risk of either Bellatrix or myself being killed in this match." He finally did relax and leaned down and kissed her.

Many had expressed their concerns about Elizabeth's welfare the day after the second match and he had made it clear to all of them that she would be fine. He had visited Bellatrix and she had almost thrown herself at his feet, hysterical in her pleas for his forgiveness for having killed Elizabeth. It seemed that someone had assured everyone else that Elizabeth had surely died and since no news of Elizabeth's welfare had been delivered the night of the second match, the rumour had reached Bellatrix who had taken it for truth.

He had let Bellatrix grovel for several minutes as if Elizabeth actually _had_ died, for he wanted her to fear ever actually killing Elizabeth in the future, but he had then been merciful and picked her up, smoothing away her tears and assured her that Elizabeth was alive and that Bellatrix was not in any sort of trouble.

He had been pleased with the relief he had seen on Bellatrix's face when she clasped her hand to her breast after hearing that she had not killed the Dark Lord's soon-to-be wife.

"She is whole and will be healed by the night of the wedding." He had reassured Bellatrix who had begun to cry again after her brief moment in the arms of relief. "In fact, Elizabeth has asked after you." He had lied. Bellatrix had stopped crying when he said this, and merely sniffled.

"Elizabeth? She asked after _me_?" She asked, her face confused and unbelieving.

"Oh yes." He had said, beginning to move about her room. "She was very concerned about you."

"_About me_, my Lord?"

"Yes, Elizabeth was concerned about the wound she gave you and she was worried that you would be just as upset about having driven your sword through her as you seem to be right now." He had said silkily.

" My wounds are fine, my Lord." Bellatrix sniffled.

"Well none the less, Elizabeth had great praise for you and even said to me in confidence that she could see why I have always favoured you as my best and most loyal."

Bellatrix had beamed at this through red, tear-stained eyes. "My Lord, does Elizabeth then _approve_ of me?" Voldemort had been a little surprised at her choice of words but in the back of his mind he congratulated Elizabeth on her manipulation, for it seemed to have worked.

"Yes, she does. She thinks most highly of you now, as I do." He granted Bellatrix a warm smile and she began to cry again.

"Oh my Lord, I know that Elizabeth makes you happy and I am your _most loyal_ servant. I want only to please you and to keep safe that which brings you pleasure!" She had cried. Bellatrix was a very theatrical woman, but it had always worked to his advantage and it appeared that Elizabeth had known this also about Bellatrix and it was now working for both of them.

"My Lord, if my treatment of your bride has displeased you then you have my _most sincere_ apologies!" Bellatrix lamented. "Will you be able to forgive me if I win the final round?" She asked in a squeaky voice, still sniffling.

"Bellatrix." He purred as he strode towards her and touched her face. She shivered at his touch. "It will please me _immensely_ if you succeed in besting Elizabeth tonight. I think that she too would be pleased." He brushed an errant strand of her flowing dark hair away from her face in an almost loving fashion.

"She would?" Bellatrix asked, again confused but also unable to hide a hint of hope from her voice.

"Of course. If you beat her than it will reassure her that I am flanked at my right by the best, don't you think so?" He asked and she nodded eagerly. "A wife would be _very_ relieved to know that her husband is in good hands." He took her hands as he said this. "And _I_ would be very pleased if those hands _do not_ have to be hers." He said and let go.

He had left Bellatrix feeling somewhat elated within himself. Bellatrix had thought Elizabeth to be tricky, but 'brilliantly conniving' was probably a better description. In fact he could think of many ways to describe the woman that was soon be his wife. In many ways she was like him, but in more ways she was _complimentary_ to him. With Elizabeth at his side and the skills she had, he would be even more secure in his rule when he finally attained it. Where Voldemort ruled with fear, Elizabeth ruled quietly with manipulation.

As Voldemort took his seat to preside over the final match, Lucius Malfoy had again asked after Elizabeth's welfare. If nothing else had been established by the competition, at least his followers had learned how precious Elizabeth was to their Lord and that by proxy she would be as precious to them.

The women had taken their places in the pit with cheerier dispositions than they ever had before and both were met with great applause. Elizabeth had turned to look at him before sliding down her ladder and had tossed him a playful wink that had made him smile.

The two women faced each other and bowed, as was customary and then took up their starting positions. When Lucius called the commencement Voldemort was tickled to see that Bellatrix had thrown the _cruciatus_ curse right off. While Elizabeth had twirled her wand oddly and shouted "_Schnelletreten_!" as she performed another aerial cartwheel and successfully avoided Bellatrix's curse.

"My Lord, is this more magic we have not seen before?" Lucius bent over and asked Voldemort quietly. The spell she had cast upon opening had not been a curse and did not seem to have been directed at Bellatrix. The spell was not one he had ever heard and he recalled that when he had first asked Elizabeth what she planned to do in the final round, she had said something about being un-expectable. He merely smiled at Lucius and waved him away.

Bellatrix was firing off various spells with the fervour of an enraged gallery shooter, but Elizabeth was doing an odd thing. As he watched her flips, wheels, butterflies, and kick-offs from the walls he started to laugh softly to himself. When he had asked her that morning what she intended to do she had said 'jump around', and he had taken it as a joke but _that_ was exactly what she was doing. She hadn't cast a single spell beyond her first and was only flying about the pit in the drunken flurry that was acrobatics, avoiding all of Bellatrix's spells in the process.

The crowd was thoroughly enjoying her performance and Voldemort suspected that it was in fact, at least partly, just that; a performance. He could see that Bellatrix was becoming somewhat irritated with the flying woman in white that opposed her, but at the same time she seemed to be thoroughly enjoying herself, perhaps even getting into the performance herself.

Elizabeth had not been lying when she'd confessed herself a poor duellist, but she had a way of getting around things and this seemed to be it. Finally she shot off a few stunning spells in Bellatrix's rough direction while in mid air but they were very poorly aimed.

The atmosphere at this match was thoroughly different from those of the previous two. There was no anxiety, apprehension or even a hunger for violence. As Voldemort looked around he saw people smiling, laughing and clapping. This match had turned out to be_ fun_ and when he looked down at Bellatrix again he could see she was genuinely grinning and even laughing on occasion.

Elizabeth had said that she would be un-expectable, and so far the entire match had been pretty much unexpected. Voldemort wondered, however, how long Elizabeth could keep up her acrobatic antics, for while she was still fairly young, she was not the young girl she had been when such things were a common part of her life.

Voldemort moved to stand and the crowd gasped as one of Bellatrix's stunning spells hit Elizabeth, who landed hard into a full split. Bellatrix aimed her wand at Elizabeth who was now stationary and temporary befuddled by not just the curse, but having been knocked out of the air. She looked up and saw Bellatrix, her eyes wide and her mouth open, she started to get up but Bellatrix had already cried "_Crucio_!" And the spell had connected, hitting Elizabeth directly in the chest.

Elizabeth writhed as Bellatrix cast the spell again and again and for several seconds everyone seemed to have been hypnotized by her successful attack on Elizabeth, for no one was cheering and Lucius had not announced the end of the match.

Voldemort looked up at Lucius who was staring with his jaw open, down into the pit, but he was not staring at Bellatrix who was standing over Elizabeth casting the _cruciatus_ curse gleefully. Voldemort followed Lucius' gaze and his heart leapt in his chest. He finally saw what everyone else was beginning to see.

Elizabeth was walking from Bellatrix's ladder towards Bellatrix herself, while a second Elizabeth writhed on the ground screaming in pain before the woman whose back was to the _real_ Elizabeth. She had cast her Doppelganger spell before what would have been Bellatrix's winning curse had hit her.

Elizabeth approached Bellatrix and stopped when she was directly behind her and pointed her wand at the back of the still-oblivious Bellatrix LeStrange. Elizabeth tapped Bellatrix on the shoulder and Bellatrix screamed in surprise as she turned to face the real Elizabeth, whose wand was now aimed directly at Bellatrix's nose.

"I thought I won." Bellatrix simpered plainly as she looked up at the taller, white-haired women who only stood expressionless. Bellatrix's wand was still pointed at the Doppelganger and even if she moved as fast as she could, Elizabeth would fire off the winning spell before Bellatrix even got her arm half-way around.

"As was expected." Elizabeth said finally, the wand still aimed at Bellatrix's face and the _cruciatus_ curse still not cast.

People were standing again, leaning over the railings, likely confused not only by the double copy of Elizabeth, but also with why Elizabeth had not cast the winning curse.

"I did not win this round." Elizabeth announced, still holding her wand on Bellatrix and staring down into the other woman's face. "Bellatrix LeStrange is the better wand wielder." She added. Elizabeth then extended her left hand down to Bellatrix who was still looking up at Elizabeth with wide-eyes.

"Shall we call it a draw?" Elizabeth asked, and finally her faced showed some emotion, for she smiled warmly down at Bellatrix who looked first at Elizabeth's wand, then at Elizabeth's hand. When Bellatrix let her wand arm relax and placed her hand in Elizabeth's, Elizabeth lowered her own wand as she pulled Bellatrix up to her feet and then raised both her own hand and Bellatrix's above their heads, gleaming at the audience. Two women, one in black, the other in white, stood before them all with no winner declared.

"Yes! Let us call it a draw!" Bellatrix agreed loudly, smiling and the two of them turned with their hands clasped together in triumph to face everyone. At first there was silence and then as if on cue a burst of applause and cheering swept over the grounds that Voldemort reckoned could have been heard all the way in London if anyone there was listening.

"The match is a _draw_!" Lucius announced, smiling himself. Bellatrix jumped up and down a few times and when her dark eyes found Voldemort's, he smiled widely and bowed his head to her. This made her so uncharacteristically enthusiastic that she actually pulled Elizabeth into a hug.

"I could never have beaten you." Elizabeth said to her as they faced each other, both smiling.

"I doubt I could have hit you with whatever it is that you did!" Bellatrix exclaimed as she turned to where the Elizabeth she had hit should have been, but all that remained were rapidly dispersing glints of light and swirls of shadow.

Elizabeth's manipulative plan had worked, and now neither woman had lost and neither had won. She had gotten her wish for Bellatrix to save face and she had also granted Voldemort his wish for her to establish herself as a formidable force amongst his followers. He doubted that either woman would remain as girlishly friendly with one another as they were at that current moment, but he thought to himself that even Death Eaters could have heart-warming moments in their lives.

Voldemort was satisfied with the competition and when he rose to speak, he ordained both of them with the title of his personal bodyguards, stating with relish that Bellatrix would be his right flank, and Elizabeth his left. He thought again about the joke Elizabeth had made about her arm and the word 'left' and laughed privately to himself as he joined the overall applause.

_A/N: I'm glad this part is over. Trying to write action of any kind was far more of a formidable task than I had thought. I hope you enjoyed this little subplot more than I did writing it! Thank you again to everyone who has followed this story thus far! Cheers! - Can_


	26. Chapter 26: The Honeymoon

Part Twenty Six: The Honeymoon

"I never understood why they call it a Honey-Moon?" Elizabeth said as she lay in the post-coital embrace of Voldemort on the night after their wedding had taken place. She was now officially his wife and while he hadn't expected to feel any differently about her after proceeding with the formalities of marriage, he found himself feeling even more fondly of her for it.

"Honestly, what are we supposed to be doing? Slathering honey all over ourselves and howling at the moon?" He smiled as he listened to her pillow-talk. She was a little drunk and when she was drunk she tended to contemplate all manner of random things aloud. Voldemort would have found this annoying in anyone else, but with Elizabeth, he found it to be endearing.

"Well, we've certainly been howling." He teased and kissed the top her head. She giggled and the sensation of her warm body quaking against his was such a pleasant sensation he kissed her again.

She propped herself up, half on his chest and looked down at him. Her hair was free and stood up a little in the back from all of their frenzied love-making. Voldemort thought that perhaps it was the sexiest way for a woman to wear her hair; as if she had just been to bed with a man.

"You know, when Bellatrix broke my nose, I was tempted to tell Severus to repair so it was like yours." She nipped the smooth length of his flattened nose with the tip of her finger and he laughed again. "I have to admit, you losing the nose is almost an improvement. We never mash noses when we kiss now."

"You're drunk." He said, holding the palm of one hand over his eyes as he tried to stop laughing at her.

"Three bottles of champagne was _your_ idea." She said, rolling her head awkwardly on her neck. She pointed a playfully accusative finger at him and he jutted his face forward to nip at it, but she snatched it away before he could catch it.

"That's because I wanted to have my way with you. I've heard that getting women drunk is the method of choice these days." He said and she laughed loudly, tilting her head to one side. A cascade of her white hair fell across his bare chest like a light silken cat's tail.

"You, _Lord Voldemort_, are ever so cunning." She teased. "You're not even drunk, not even tipsy." She protested and he shrugged.

She laid her cheek back on his chest and his hand drifted to her hair, he ran his fingers through it, enjoying the sleek feel of it between the webs of his fingers. They were silent for some time, merely enjoying their closeness and the security that marriage had brought to it.

"What was that spell that you used in the last round?" He asked softly. He had been curious about it but after the competition had been the wedding, which had been grand and well celebrated. Elizabeth had been a stunning bride and when she'd walked down the aisle towards him he had seen how flushed her cheeks were for she had been embarrassed to be the center of attention. When she was embarrassed he found her extremely desirable.

"The German one?" She asked softly.

"Was it German? What did it mean?" He asked, running his fingers from the roots of her hair to the tips where he let the smooth white strands fall from his hand.

"Basically it means fast-footed. How else do you think I could jump around like a monkey on vapours for as long as I did?" She giggled a little and then a soft burp escaped her lips and she covered it, excusing herself. He smiled at this. True intimacy was not what he had been raised to believe it was when he had been taught about romance and love. True intimacy was just what he was experiencing at that moment; two people entirely comfortable with one another and happy to merely be together.

"I didn't know you spoke German." He said. He wasn't really surprised, Elizabeth had travelled a lot as a girl and he expected her to be worldly.

She propped her chin on his sternum and looked at him with a furrowed brow. "Of course I speak German. I _am_ German, Tom." He looked at her quizzically and she frowned at him. "Elizabeth Helyn Mary _Kappel_." She recited her whole name as if this should have tipped him off. "Kappel is German for Chapel."

He narrowed his brow, thinking. Had ever even asked her about her heritage? He didn't think that he had. She spoke with an English accent but there had always been a slight sprinkle of uniqueness to her speech and now he supposed it was because English may not have been her first language.

"Really Tom, it's rather pathetic that you're only just now getting to know where your wife is from the night after you married her." She teased. He brushed an errant strand of her hair out her eyes and smiled at her.

"I never asked you, did I?" He admired her dark eyes and the way they were contrasted by her white hair. He had always liked her dark hair, but he found her new lack of pigment also to his liking.

"No, I don't think that you ever did. Shall I fill you in?" She cocked an eyebrow at him and he nodded. "Well, I was born in Düsseldorf, Germany. We lived there until I was about nine years old, then we moved to Britain. When I came of school age there much debate between my parents about whether I should attend Beauxbatons or Durmstrang, for neither wanted me to go to Hogwarts. My mother favoured Beauxbatons because of their reputation for being very scholastic, but it was decided at the time that my French was not yet strong enough for me to undertake my full-time studies in France, so I was sent to Durmstrang."

Voldemort did not tell her that he had always _assumed_ she'd attended Hogwarts. "They teach in German there, then?" Voldemort asked. He'd never been to Durmstrang but had always heard good things about their education in the Dark Arts. Durmstrang's headmaster had even been one of his Death Eaters at one point.

"Nope. Russian." Elizabeth said simply and he fixed her with a surprised gaze.

"How _many_ languages do you speak, Elizabeth?" He asked, feeling a little embarrassed and surprised that he'd never known these things about her. He supposed it explained quite a bit about her though, for she had always been unlike any other English witch he'd ever met.

"German, French, Latin, Russian, and of course, English." She said, ticking off the list on the fingers of one hand as she rhymed them off to him. "It's been a long time since I really spoke anything other than English, so I'm sure I'm a bit off keel with all of the others by now." She said, letting her hand flop down to hang daintily from her wrist. "Latin I guess doesn't really count. I mean who the hell speaks _Latin_ anymore?" She smirked and he smiled at her.

He studied her face for several moments before running the palm of his hand down to cup her cheek. "You are extremely well educated, Elizabeth. I confess I am beginning to feel a little inferior." She smiled at him and crawled up his chest to kiss him deeply. He wrapped his arms around her naked body and held her tightly as she kissed him. When she was done kissing him she looked down at him and smiled.

"Well, so long as you have me around, no one ever has to know that you don't know what I know, do they?" She asked and he smirked at her. "I'm your wife now and I guess it's my _wifely duty_ to back you up with my brains where yours don't seem to be sufficient, though I struggle to comprehend a situation that we may encounter where you will need me more than yourself."

"I can think of several situations in which I'll need you more than myself. Some of which are entirely unrelated to sex." He teased and she threw her head back with laughter, her mane of hair flying backwards and striking his hold on her delicately.

"Why don't we just shut up and get back to what we're supposed to be doing on our _Honeymoon_?" she suggested with a sultry, pouted lip.

He made love to her again and he found himself grateful for his new body. When had been with her before he had not possessed the stamina to continue to take her repeatedly, and since Elizabeth never seemed to object to love-making, he was glad he was not only better able to do so now, but to have the refreshed desire to do so repeatedly that he had not experienced since his youth.


	27. Chapter 27: The Heap

Part Twenty Seven: The Heap

"Alright, _alright_! Look, I'm not saying that this isn't possible, what I'm saying, Tom, is that what has been collected all these years and all these parchments of yours, are not _all_ written in a language I actually speak!" Elizabeth was smiling as she said this, holding up an unfurled roll of parchment and shaking it at Voldemort. "This is Arabic for God's sake! And the only reason I know that is in Arabic is because I know what Arabic _looks like_, not how to read it." She tossed into a heaping pile of rejected materials that was collecting behind her work area.

Voldemort stood amongst the clutter in the library at the Riddle house. All of the book shelves had been used and thus stacks of books and heaps of scrolls littered the floors after having taking up all available surfaces. It was a terrible mess but both he and Elizabeth were comfortable in chaotic libraries and work areas given their shared magnitudes of ambition.

"Elizabeth, some of this was acquired from private collections and others from the Ministry, the vaults where they keep what they seize after house raids. Generations of illegal material are here and I need to know as much about what is here as possible. If the Ministry saw fit to seize it, then it could be something useful to me." Voldemort said, crossing one leg over the other in his seat between several towering stacks of books. He looked quickly out of the closest window which was mostly obstructed by stacks of large, dusty books. It was still daylight outside but the falling snow cast a gloomy, bluish haze over the library.

"The Ministry _of Magic_?" Elizabeth asked, setting down another foreign scroll she had been holding on the desk next to her. Voldemort nodded and she held up her hands shutting her eyes and looking away. He grinned. Elizabeth had never been without a healthy rebelliousness within her, but she did respect the law and he found great enjoyment in alluding to just how far he'd gone against the rules.

"I don't even want to know how you have your fingers in the Ministry's collections, let alone their business. Especially when Fudge has got his thumb so far up his ass he refuses to even entertain the idea that you've come back." She said and turned back to one of the open scrolls on the desk she stood before. "Then again I guess that works to your advantage, doesn't it?" She asked without looking at him. He nodded anyway.

The library was silent save for their talking, and the swish of her black taffeta gown. She picked up the scroll and smirked before facing him with one hand on her hip. "This is a house deed for some place Northern France." She said and they both laughed. Voldemort held up his hands as if to say it couldn't be helped and she tossed the parchment behind her into the growing heap of rejected materials.

Voldemort stood up and approached her as she was bending over the desk, her left hand planted next to another opened scroll and the forefinger of her right hand skimming some text written in symbols he'd seen before but did not know. Her fingernails had been painted a deep shade of purple and her lips had been stained crimson. He sometimes wondered if women knew how powerful the innate magic of their feminine allure was, particularly when they drew emphasis to their finest parts.

He leaned over her from behind and planted his left hand next to hers. He looked down at the text she was reading over her shoulder. "That Russian isn't it?" He guessed, aware that he'd seen that particular alphabet in such countries near Russia.

"Yes. It's written in Cyrillic but the writer had a worse writing hand than I do." She complained. "It's a legal testimony, pertaining to what I'm guessing is going to _turn out_ to be a murder that happened somewhere in Latvia , I don't recognize the name of the town or city, but the main issue is regarding jurisdiction, for the crime occurred outside of Russia, in a bordering country."

She sighed and turned her head sidewise to look up at him. "I don't know how much of what you've got here is going to be useful for _anything_. Let alone anything _you'd_ be interested in." She said doubtfully. He looked down at the parchment she had been skimming and then back at her. He enjoyed looking at her face, particularly when she had made it up, though he supposed most men enjoyed seeing their women decorated.

He was staring at her plump and shapely lower lip, feeling as if he'd like to kiss her and pierce that lower lip with his teeth to taste her blood, when she looked away and back at the parchment about the crime in Latvia.

"Where is your snake these days?" Elizabeth asked as she threw the parchment over her shoulder and reached for another one from the crude pile on the corner of her desk, smoothing it out on the table top after pulling it's ribbon free and casting it away casually.

"Nagini? She's busy doing something for me at the Ministry." He said. She held up a hand to stop him from explaining any further as soon as he'd mentioned the Ministry and he grinned.

"It's almost the Christmas holidays; shouldn't you have her slithering around Hogwarts strangling Harry Potter in his sleep or something?" Elizabeth joked and Voldemort's grin grew.

He leaned down and kissed Elizabeth forcefully on the cheek before giving her bottom a playful squeeze. "She can multi-task, as can you. I'll be back later to collect you." He said as he stood up straight and took several steps away from her. She turned and looked over at him, her brows furrowed. "You won't want to know where I'm going." He assured her and she cocked an eyebrow at him before returning to her task.


	28. Chapter 28: Augusta Pye

Part Twenty Eight: Augusta Pye

Voldemort followed Elizabeth as she moved through the halls of St. Mungo's Hospital in the memory she had surrendered to him upon her return from the place in real time. He followed her to the triage office where she surrendered her wand for examination and served the Healer on duty there with her own Healer registration parchments.

"Ah, Miss Kappel, I don't think St. Mungo's has seen you inside its walls since your post-graduate training!" The plump, graying man behind the service counter exclaimed as he looked over her parchments. "It's a pity you never decided to take up practice here with us." He added, smiling warmly up at Elizabeth over silver-rimmed spectacles.

"Now, now Ignaz Phillip, I have been here several times since then for patients of my own. You know that I have practice privileges here." Elizabeth teased the aging man in a kindly manner that caused the man's smile to graduate into a grin of pure delight.

"My dear, you remember my name!" The man handed Elizabeth back her wand and her parchments, which she tucked into the front of her white robes. "Well go on in ahead and take care of your business. Be sure to check out with the Healer at the desk when you leave." The old man motioned towards a set of large, double doors past the triage desk. Elizabeth thanked the man kindly and went to the doors, touching the handles with the tip of her wand to open the security charm placed upon them.

They had entered the Emergency Department from whence Elizabeth had told Voldemort any Healer with an activated security charm on their wand could travel into any and all areas of St. Mungo's. As she passed a man sitting up on a gurney who appeared to have his hands on backwards she broke away from the initial treatment area into a hall lined with rooms on either side whose occupants were kept from view by long pale green drapes. She passed a linen cart and casually swiped a folded set of lime green robes and a matching cloth mask off the top shelf.

She passed several Healers dressed in lime green robes, walking with purpose as she moved briskly through the turns and corridors of the Emergency Department towards a set of double doors marked 'General Admissions'. No one cast her a suspicious glare. She moved through the hospital with her chin held level and her eyes fixed straight ahead. To anyway she passed she would appear only to be a Healer intent on getting somewhere in a timely manner.

Elizabeth stole swiftly into a private lavatory and locked the door behind herself. She approached the mirror over the sink as she pulled her personal items out of the white robes she'd worn to the Hospital. "This is _not_ the world's most brilliant plan, Tom." Elizabeth said, speaking to her reflection in the mirror. Voldemort stood behind her but his reflection was not present, for this was _her_ memory that he was witnessing and while she had taken this aside to speak to him when he would collect the memory, a memory was all that it was.

"You want me to look in on this Arthur Weasley individual that your snake bit, but failed to kill. You want me to do this knowing full-well that my registration and time of entry will be documented here and that whatever lies I tell to gain access to this patient are going to be found out." She spoke to her reflection as she set the lime green robes and mask on the wash basin and began undoing herself from the robes she had worn in.

"We were lucky Ignaz didn't ask me to name the patient I am here to see because I would have had to pick a name at random and he easily could have checked the admissions roll to see if that patient really _was_ here. We could already have been caught." She said tersely as she let her robes drop and stepped out of them.

"This is a foolish risk, Tom." She said. Her voice was muffled as she slid the fresh lime green robes over her head. "And for what? I'm not here to kill him. I've already gathered you haven't told me everything about why I'm doing this, but this, in my prejudicial and pessimistic estimation, is going to get back to you."

Elizabeth straightened out her robes and tucked her belongings into a large pocket laced into the left side. She pulled her hair up into a tight knot at the back of her head and then tied the green mask over her lower face. She leaned onto the wash basin to scrutinize herself carefully in the mirror and then pulled down the mask so that it hung snugly around her neck. "Let's just get this over with." She whispered, and he suspected that she had not said this for him, but to herself.

Elizabeth extracted a small squeeze bottle from her old robes and unscrewed the cap. She tilted her head back and pinched out three drops of the clear liquid in the bottle in to each of her eyes. She blinked rapidly and wiped the excess fluid from her cheeks. She looked in the mirror again, scrutinizing herself more closely. "These should dilate my pupils enough so that when I'm face to face with the patient he won't be able to discern their elliptical shape." She blinked rapidly again and then winced, squinting against the harsh light over head. "It's going to make every light in this place as bright as the goddamn sun itself though." She frowned and tossed her old robes and the squeeze bottle into the rubbish bin near the wash basin.

Voldemort followed Elizabeth as she moved through the hospital, finally coming upon a ward on the first floor labelled Dai Llewellyn, the ward appropriate for dangerous injuries inflicted by magical creatures. She looked at the staff plates next to the ward doors as she approached them. Two healers were listed, the senior and the trainee, both male: Hippocrates Smythwyck and Augustus Pye.

She opened the doors and entered the ward at a brisk and purposeful pace, pulling her mask up over her lower face as she did so. At the end of the ward, near a poorly accommodating window was the ginger-haired wizard Voldemort had sent her to examine. She headed directly for him, her lime robes billowing behind her. She paid the other two occupants of the ward no mind. When she reached Weasley's rack she plucked a patient chart from the end of his bed and began to skim over it as she introduced herself to Weasley.

"Has Smythwyck been in to see you yet, Mr. Weasley?" She asked, still studying the chart. The ginger-headed man was looking at her with what seemed to be an expression of confusion and a little anxiety. He sat up further in his bed as he looked Elizabeth over.

"Yes, but I haven't met the trainee Healer yet. He is supposed to be along later to examine my bandages." Weasely said, fixing a false but polite smile on his lumpish face.

Elizabeth looked up from the chart, peering carefully at Weasley over her mask. "_I'm_ the trainee healer, and _I'm_ a 'she'." She said firmly.

Weasly's cheeks reddened and he gestured towards the doors to the ward itself. "But it says _Augustus_ Pye is the trainee..."

Elizabeth clapped Weasley's patient file closed and moved to the side of Weasley's bed. She pulled a nearby sitting stool closer to the bed and sat down in front of the man. "My name is Augus_ta_ Pye, and I've been asking them to fix that damned name plate since I got here." She said in a light, friendly tone. Weasley seemed to become more relaxed and he smiled at this false farce Elizabeth had lied to him about. She had been right, _this_ lie, at least, would catch up with them.

"Now, Mr. Weasley, I am told that you were bitten by some sort of snake." Elizabeth stated, raising her eyes at Weasley who shifted uncomfortably again in his bed. He nodded but did not meet her eyes. This was typical, Dumbledore had collected and assembly of skilled wizards to fight Voldemort, but hadn't bothered to make sure they were the least bit clever.

"Your chart doesn't indicate _where_ you acquired this injury." Elizabeth said passively, for she already knew where Weasley had been and knew he would not tell her anyway. She moved past the question quickly before Weasley could even bring an exculpation to his pallid lips.

"It also indicates that you were brought in unconscious. Who found you?" Elizabeth asked as she crossed one leg over the other and placed the chart casually in her lap. She peered at Weasley inquisitively and even though she was wearing a mask to cover her lower face Voldemort had the distinct impression that she was grinning at Weasley as she spoke to him.

Weasley was about to speak but Elizabeth tossed her head back and snapped her fingers as if she'd just remembered something. "I'm sorry, It says right in here that it was Ministry Officials who brought you in." She laughed a little and Weasley joined her, looking uneasy still.

"I work for the Ministry of Magic." Weasley professed and Elizabeth sighed her acknowledgment of the connection.

"That would make sense. Could you tell me how you were found?" Elizabeth asked as she opened Weasley's file again and flipped through each page.

"Well…" Weasley began. "My colleagues were sort of, _warned_ that something had happened to me and came to my aid in time to retrieve me." Elizabeth nodded silently, still flipping through the pages and lingering over each one long enough so that if Voldemort wished to look over her shoulder and read what she had read, recorded in her memory, he could. However, Weasley had just confirmed for Voldemort what he wanted to know. It _had_ really happened in the manner he had suspected. Potter had warned him and Potter had seen what Voldemort had seen when Voldemort had used Nagini to attack Weasley. Snape had not been incorrect when he'd warned Voldemort about the boys visions.

Voldemort pulled his face out of the pensieve and cocked his neck from side to side. Elizabeth was standing next to him, her arms crossed over her chest and an expectant look on her face. Voldemort was not yet sure if Potter being able to see what he saw was a good thing or a bad thing. He would need time to consider it.

"What happened after Weasley told you his colleagues had been warned?" Voldemort asked Elizabeth, he was still gripping the sides of the pensieve with his taloned fingers.

"Not much. I examined him, the wound is very bad and the Healers will have trouble making mend of it." Elizabeth said. Her tone was not one of pleasure or amusement, she had still been cross with him when she'd returned from St. Mungo's earlier that morning. "His wife came and I politely excused myself." She added, shrugging.

Voldemort craned his neck to look at Elizabeth directly. He grinned at her but her expression did not change. "That was stupid, Tom." She said, but her continued assertion about the foolishness of his request to send her in to see Weasley did not perturb him. He stepped away from the pensieve and faced her.

"Yes it was, but your risk has told me what I need to know." Voldemort said, and despite her stance of displeasure he embraced her and kissed her firmly on the crown of her white hair.


End file.
